Starlink Rooftop Installation + DIY Mount Extension + Speed Test

Alright guys, I have some exciting news. I upgraded my Internet to Starlink and today we are installing the dish on my roof. It’s not going to be simple because I want it in one spot and one spot only, so I expect we’ll need to do some modifications.

Long story short, I live in a rural neighborhood, not wired to the Internet. My only option use to be a cellular home internet package but the network is oversold and the hardware has issues. Starlink recently became available and I’ve now upgraded and my new dish and router arrived today. I set it up on my lawn to test it out before installing it on my roof. I am seeing speeds near a 100Mbps down, which is much better then with my old cellular Internet provider. Occasionally, I saw some very strong numbers.

Here is the dish outside and the cord running in though my office window. I want the antenna installed on this gable, right here, not visible from the street. This location is easy to access for installation and maintenance, I don’t need a ladder. I should have no obstructions to satellites up there, and the dish will be protected from the high winds that hit from the north-west. Wind will still get at it, so it needs to be sturdy and must look good and clean. As for the cable, I want it to run through my attic and then down inside the walls to my networking area in my basement.

Ok, so up here on the roof, this is where I want to install the mount. Let’s break out the Starlink app and check for obstructions. And it looks like we are good to proceed.

Let’s get started by cutting the hole in the soffit for the wires. Now, I’ll feed a fishing tape into the hole and run inside. Here where the sunlight is shining in is where I drilled the hole and I think I can spot the fishing tape. Oh yeah, and see, there is no access to that gable.

I tied a string to the tape and will pull it through.

Next, I’m going to line up where I want the mount installed and make sure it’s level. I marked where I want the holes and now, we’ll drill them out. I’ll continue to fast forward through this. I added the silicone, screwed in the bolts, rechecked that it’s level, feed the cable through the mount and drop in the dish. Perfect, right? Well, not really. I tested the dish and it connected fine, but if I were to stow it, the dish would hit the roof. So, now the fun begins on making my extension mount to raise the antenna an additional 10-12 inches or 25-30cm.

I picked up some 1 1/2 inch square tubing and let’s make some cuts. There are several ways to do this, and I feel this is the best solution for me. So, we have our short piece cut to get us around the shingle drip-edge and this is the extension. I’ll clean up the edges to make this safer to work with. Here are my drill holes for the part of the new bracket that will be between the house and the extension. I also drilled the holes for attaching the original short mount.

Now it’s time for a few coats of spray paint to prevent this from rusting. I’ll add more paint later once I’m all done, but next we’ll drill in a couple pilot holes for the large lag bolts. I actually want these to be inside the tubing so there will be less leverage on the overall extension, so I’ll drill these larger holes so my socket will fit inside. Here is a look at the plan. I picked up longer lag bolts for attaching to the house and longer hex bolts with nylon nuts for attaching the short mount to the extension.

And another quick time-lapse of putting it together. Perfect so far. I couldn’t be happier.

Next, we are going to prep the junction box. I’ll drill a hole in it to feed the wire through into the house, but I’m just going to notch the edge for feeding the wire into it because the connector on the starlink antenna is huge and I don’t want to deal with trying to find grommets to cover that up. I’m also using a large junction box because I might add outdoor Wifi or security cameras here. Lastly, I’ll add some sealing to keep bugs out of my attic.

Back on the roof, using the same holes as before, we’ll add more silicone, and attached the new mount. With the wire fed through the mount, I can now drop the dish into place. Let’s plug it in. The dish has lots of room to move about and I’ve cleared the drip edge. I’ll call this a success so far.

Now it’s time to deal with the cables. I’ll attach the junction box and feed the cable into the attic. The wire comes inside over there and this is where it will enter the house. The hole I drilled was a little too small so I cut a small notch in the hole and slid it through. Pro tip however, which I didn’t realize until after, the connection on the end can be pulled out of the antenna and is much smaller and easier to work with.

Here we are in the basement and the cable comes down through this opening. The Starlink router is powered up and the dish is plugged in. I can connect the Starlink Internet to my home network and all the devices on it by plugging into my switch. As you can see, I am using the Ethernet adapter to give me a hardwired connection to my network. I definitely recommend this setup; much less wifi congestion and faster speeds for hard wired devices.

We’ll run back outside and add some conduit covering to the wire. That looks good and protected from the sun’s UV. The junction box has the little slot filled in and I am very happy with how this turned out; very sturdy and in the perfect location.

Up next, a quick time-lapse of stowing the antenna and resetting it to make sure it’s not going hit the roof. Looks like the extension is the perfect height.

Ok, it’s time for our final speed test from the new location. As a quick reference, here is a baseline of my old cellular internet speeds. I had about 10 Mbps until about 3pm, when school’s out and speeds drop down to next to nothing.

Now, let’s jump into speedtest and give Starlink a whorl. Ok cool. Latency is not perfect but no complaints here. Wow, check out that, wow, that speed is incredible. Am I seeing that right? 270!  And for the upload, we are maxing out around 10, perfect! I’m super happy with those numbers.

Alright guys, this was a fun project and I hope you found it helpful. Links for everything seen here today are in the description. Also, please show your support by subscribing to my channel. Thanks for watching!