How to Install a Starlink Tower - No More Obstructions!

starlink internet is one of the best options for people that live in rural or remote areas but unfortunately most of those places also have a ton of trees like I do the starlink Satellite Dish needs direct clear access to the sky so that gives you two options you can either cut down a bunch of trees or you can mount that satellite dish up higher now many people are going to choose to put it on top of the roof for me I didn't really like that option I didn't want to drill extra holes in my roof so I went another Direction I installed my own Tower and I'm going to put that styling dish right on the top and doing it this way is going to give me a ton of advantages that dish is going to be up super high and it's going to have a fully unobstructed view of the sky I can also climb this Tower the sides of that thing are actually a ladder so if I need to replace the dish or do any kind of effects I can just climb right up but I'm also planning to install some other antennas on the same Tower one for HD TV some cellular boosters and who knows what I'm going to put on this thing in the future but enough talk let's get on with the project and I also want to give a special thank you to rental HQ who supplied me with some of the equipment in this video that made this job a lot easier once you put that antenna in the ground it's going to be pretty permanent so you want to make sure you put it in the right place I've got many parts of my yard that are open but they're not all facing the Northeast view of the sky and that's what starlink needs but I needed to do some testing so all you've got to do is set up your Starling dish and see what kind of signal it gets and it's also going to tell you what kind of obstructions get in the way now you've got to get yourself an antenna now a lot of people just buy used telephone pole but those things are never going to be tall enough for most rural settings I needed between 30 and 40 feet and the antenna you're looking at here I paid just a hundred dollars for it's a Roan 25 antenna it's probably 40 years old but this thing is super strong go on Facebook Marketplace Craigslist you want to look up ham radio antenna CB antenna or just look up Rhone 25. be ready to act quick I actually missed out on a couple of these where they were given away for free now it's time to start digging so I need to clear out some space and I'm not going to use any kind of special tools I'm just going to use my post hole digger and keep in mind I'm just sharing with you guys how I installed this Tower I'm sure there's going to be plenty of people that are going to tell me I did this thing wrong messed it up or I didn't follow some sort of rule if you want to put in your own Tower make sure you check with your building department and understand all the rules and guidelines before you start and be sure that you call Dig Safe before you do any kind of excavation in your yard because you don't really know what might be down there I dug that hole down around 48 inches and that was going to work out perfect for my installation but you've got to remember my tower is also going to be braced against the garage anytime that you brace an antenna against a building it totally changes how much concrete and how big the hole has to be you've got an antenna that's going to be freestanding you're going to need a lot more concrete and if it gets really tall say over 30 to 40 feet you're even going to need to use things called guy wires I'm not going to need that stuff in my install because of the bracing against the garage and the fact the tower is only going to be about 38 feet tall it's also a good idea to put down some gravel just to give you a little bit of drainage at the bottom of the tower legs next I put that first section of antenna tower into the hole and this is where I almost made one of the biggest mistakes of this project remember these sections go into one another so they've got a male and a female side you need to make sure that the male end is always pointing up and if I put that male end into the car concrete this would have been a total disaster next you want to make absolutely sure that everything is level and secure the tower in position if you think it's going to move and now it's time for the concrete now the stuff I'm using doesn't require any mixing you just open up the bag port and dry and then you add the water on top soaks into the concrete and it should fast set rock hard and because this hole is so deep I didn't want to just pour all the bags in at once because I kind of thought the water might not be able to get to the bottom so I poured in about four bags at a time then sprayed them with water to get everything to set up and then I could go ahead and add some more concrete on top but once I was done with those 11 bags they didn't nearly fill up the hole so I had to go back to the store and I bought 15 more bags and it was a lot of work hauling this concrete around but for the most part it just dumps it in the hole out of the water on top and within an hour this Tower was already feeling Rock Solid I wanted to make that tower look a little bit better and treat the rust spots now it's made of galvanized metal but unfortunately they've also spray painted it so that's going to create a little bit of a problem for me so I started by kind of grinding off any loose rust and then I use this product that's called coal galvanizing compound it's kind of like galvanization in a spray can then I'm going to spray paint the entire Tower and I picked a dark gray that's kind of similar to the color of the starlink antenna with my concrete cured I'm ready to add another section to the tower now these each weigh about 50 pounds they're a little bit odd to handle because they are so long so to make it a little bit easier stuck it in the back of my ATV just to give me a bit more height while I'm setting it in place and these Tower sections are super tight it's a precise fit once you get them started you're going to need to get some sort of a clamp squeeze each section A little bit you've also got to get the holes on those sections to line up perfectly but fortunately this is an easy tip grab one of your steel punches or some sort of an awl and drive it right into the holes now once it gets in there just wiggle it back and forth and you'll eventually get the holes to line up perfectly now you'll be able to insert your bolts easily next I went ahead and assembled the top of the antenna tower to the next section now you can see a close-up here of how it all works I'd also recommend applying some sort of an anti-seize compound onto that male end that'll just kind of lube things up and make it go in a lot easier anytime you stick in a big piece of metal up into the sky you want to make sure it's protected from lighting and that means you want to ground it now there are tons of resources out there better than this video but this is how it works in a nutshell first you're going to buy yourself a grounding rod these are the same ones that they use in your house for electrical work you're going to drive it deep into the ground exactly now we need to electrically connect your Tower to the grounding rod and for that we're going to use these two ground clamps remember that that Tower was painted you'll need to grind off some of that paint or coating to make sure that that clamp gets good electrical connection and with our clamps in place all we've got to do is add the wire and here I'm using a bare six gauge copper wire keep in mind that bare metal is definitely going to rust out so once everything's tightened up I'd recommend spraying that with some sort of a Flex Seal or rubberized coating but there's still one problem I've got to install two more sections of Tower and originally I thought it was just going to use a ladder but once I considered that a little bit more I realized that was a really stupid idea and I decided I wanted to run some equipment to make this a little bit easier and I'm still new to New Hampshire and I don't normally rent anything like this so I didn't know who had one of these in stock so instead by using rentalhq.com they find who's got this equipment and it was as simple as making a phone call I decided to have them deliver it and you could pick it up if you have a truck or a trailer but this made the job a lot easier and you get to meet with the person they're going to show you how to use the equipment they can answer any questions and I never used the lift before and I was honestly a little bit afraid of going up so high that the guy gave me some great tips showed me how to use every feature on the machine if you've ever gone up on a ladder and hated it this machine is a game changer you just push some levers you can go up in the air as high as you want and you feel so much more secure I was able to carefully align the bucket and I could bring that section down right onto the poles and Rental one of these lifts can vary in price they can go between three and five hundred dollars a day now that sounds like a lot of money but if you put it up a tower that you might have for the next 20 years it's probably a good investment you're gonna see at the end of the video while I have this thing I also used it to do some tree trimming and I even changed a couple light bulbs at my house that I was never going to be able to get up to and now thanks to the help of the lift the tower is fully in place and All That Remains is that I need to bolt together that final section now I'm ready to install the starlink antenna but before I do that I've got to use this adapter the bottom part of the post on starlink is kind of a proprietary Mount but you want to adapt it to fit on a normal steel post and that's exactly what this adapter does now that I'm back up on the lift I've just got to install the adapter and tighten those Allen screws until everything is secure now I've just got to install the starlink dish and that's easy to do it just slides right into the adapter until it clicks and with the dish in place all I've got to do is route that cable through the inside of the Tower and it's a good idea to nylon tie it along the way but now I need to get that cable at the bottom of the tower into the building now there are many different ways to do that but keep in mind I'm planning to run additional wires and antennas in the future in this one and a half inch electrical elbow is going to work perfectly it's cheap it's waterproof and if you follow my instructions it's also going to be rodent proof start by opening up the housing and you're going to want to drill at least two or three holes into the housing itself because we're going to screw this thing directly to the building now use a hole saw to drill the access hole insert the elbow make sure that everything fits but then you'll want to apply some sealant around that hole and also behind it make sure everything's level then screw it right against the structure and it's still a good idea to put some more sealant around the top and I kind of made a mess when I first did it here but then just wipe off the excess you can use a rag and the final result should look pretty good now an inch and a half is a big hole and it's going to allow that Starling cable even with the end of it to go right in easily but you don't want to get anything on that connector so it's a good idea to put some painters tape or a Ziploc bag in it just to protect it until it's finally through the hole once you've got your cable into the building we've got to take care of that hole in the bottom but remember you might want to make changes or add cables in the future so you want to use this stuff called duct seal stuff will never dry out you can even mold it right around the cable so here I'm going to press it into the hole squeeze it around the ends and this will completely seal this it's going to prevent mice or bugs getting in but it's also removable so if you need to change something in the future you can pull it out re-mold it back into position and it will be completely sealed in this access cover they give you also has a weatherproof gasket you just need to screw it back into position and you're ready to go now having the wire exposed like that could be a problem so if you want you could bury it under the ground add additional conduit to the tower for the moment this is going to work for me until I add the additional antennas and then once I get them all together I may add some Contour to put something over the top up just to make sure that nobody can easily damage them and with a wire installed and our dish working on Top This install is complete all that's left is to leave the thing powered on takes about four to six hours and then starlink will report back if it detects any obstructions or it has any issues picking up a signal you can still see that there are some small obstructions on the edge of the Horizon but they're not causing the dish any problems at all when I had the dish operate on a ground level you can see in this log it was getting obstructed literally every minute and that was going to cause major internet problems my tower has been up and running now for about two weeks and I'm absolutely thrilled with the result it's working perfectly and now I've got a perfect place to mount TV antennas or any type of cellular boosters that I want in the future one thing you might be wondering is why didn't I just install this thing on the roof of the garage well the problem is that roof is about 15 feet further back than the tower and I was going to get a lot more interference from those trees and it was never going to give me a clear signal if you need to use starlinking you've got a lot of obstructions putting up your own Tower or a pole could be a great option and the point of this video was to show you what I did in my install and then it is working well for me and I'm hoping to enjoy this thing for years to come and be sure to check out rentalhq.com if you're looking for any type of equipment they not only connect you to the right place they've also got helpful guides that can teach you how to use this equipment to get the best results possible and if you like this video be sure to give me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you're not already for more videos coming up

Channel: Silver Cymbal

Views: 582,944

Keywords: starlink, starlink speeds, no obstructions, obstructions, internet, installing starlink, how to mount starlink

Id: qZKU5c6qlH8

Length: 11min 2sec (662 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 08 2022