Hey friends, welcome back to Grand Adventure! I'm your host Marc Guido, and now that we've had
our Starlink internet on the RV for a couple of weeks we're going to show you what it was
like trying to transfer our service down here to busy Quartzsite, Arizona, so stay tuned!
So a couple of weeks ago in our introduction to Starlink video, we explained to you that there
are still some limitations about being able to move from location to location
and have access to Starlink satellite internet service. Now if you missed that introductory
episode I'll put a link right here on the screen that way you can go back and check it out, but
this is a perfect example. We're in La Posa South Long-Term Visitor Area just south of Quartzsite,
Arizona, and technically speaking right here where I'm standing Starlink does not yet offer
internet service. So therefore we had to find a service address in busy Quartzsite, Arizona.
Now up from town, north and west of town along on the north side of I-10
they actually do offer Starlink in that area already at this point. However, because of
the congestion with so many people here in Quartzsite -- you know what it's like in winter,
there are just RVs all over the place -- and a lot of people have gotten Starlink.
So those areas just north of town and west of town are actually already at capacity.
Starlink limits capacity in each area until they get more satellites up in orbit, in order to
preserve the experience for those customers that they are serving in that area. So we actually
had to get a service address that's all the way over there in those mountains eight miles away.
So how exactly did we go about finding that valid service address eight miles out that way? I'd
like to share with you the process that we went through, in hopes that it may be helpful to you.
We started by going to Google My Maps and creating a new map that we'll be able to work with.
If you've not been to Google My Maps, this is a wonderful product that allows you to create
your own custom maps that you can either use just yourself or you can share. And what we're
doing is we're going to rename the map, so that way we can identify it within our collection
of maps that we have in Google My Maps. And we're going to create a pin for our campsite,
so that way we have a central basis to work from. Putting in the address here for the camp,
and we're going to change the color to... let's make it purple, so that way we can
easily identify our campsite on the map. We're going to create potential Starlink addresses.
If you're not familiar with Google My Maps we'll put a link right down in the video description,
so that way you get easy access to this wonderful mapping tool from Google.
Now for inputting service addresses into Starlink's website, we found it easiest using
plus codes rather than latitude and longitude. Plus codes you can obtain for any point on the map
easily right from Google Maps right here in the left left-hand navigation pane. What's wonderful
for boondockers is that your service address does not need to be a street address within your
Starlink account page you can simply drag the dot around, but what we're going to do is we're
going to go over here and paste the plus code for our campsite in Quartzsite and check for service.
And we're going to update address, and we're going to wait a moment to see what happens, and ...
Oh! Son of a gun, Starlink is not yet available at our campsite, which is what we told you in
the beginning of this video. So we need to find an alternative. Now we've found that Starlink
works best when you are right at your service location; however, in our experience you can be
up to 10 miles away from your service location and still have decent service. You will get the
occasional dropout because Starlink believes that there are obstructions to your view of the
satellite that don't truly exist; however, those dropouts are very short-term and very infrequent,
and most programs don't even notice that you're experiencing these dropouts. So I'm using the
measuring tool in Google My Maps to measure out approximately 10 miles from our physical location,
and I'm going to place pins about every two miles or so from 0 to 10 miles out. And I'm
going to keep creating these 10-mile lines like spokes on a wheel so I can
give myself a set of potential service locations at which I can try to obtain Starlink service.
It's a laborious process laying out these pins. It probably takes a good
seven or eight minutes in total to have a nice selection that I can choose from and try to
gain an understanding of where Starlink service is available, where it's not available,
and where it is open for me to sign up. So let's go ahead and speed up this process a little bit.
I'm going to lay all these pins out like spokes on a wheel, and when we come back in just a moment
I'll show you the finished product and how we use that information to get a good service address.
So here now what we have left is a really nice assortment of evenly spaced potential
service addresses within a 10-mile radius of our camp in Quartzsite.
So our next step is going to be to check each of these service addresses in Starlink,
so I'm going to click on one of these pins and I'm going to copy the latitude and longitude
so that we can get a plus code address. Now in my experience I haven't yet found a way to use
latitude and longitude in Starlink, but plus codes do work. So to get the plus code we'll
head over here to Google Maps, we'll go up to the search bar, paste in the latitude
and longitude of that pin, and head on down here and copy the plus code to our clipboard.
We'll take that plus code back over here to our Starlink account page,
we'll paste it into the location check ,and we're going to click "update address" ...
And will you look at that! Service is available at that pin but it's already at capacity,
because there are so many folks in Quartzsite right now. To help me gain a visual understanding
of where I should be looking for Starlink service I'm going to change that pin to yellow, which for
me is going to indicate that service is available but it's already at capacity. Now we'll pick
another pin. Let's go down to the very southern end, the opposite end, and we'll grab the latitude
and longitude for that pin. And I'm going to keep replicating this process for each of the pins,
marking them red if service is not yet available or yellow if it's available but at capacity.
Finally, the ones where service is available and I can sign up I will mark in green.
Now up to now I've been showing you a recreation of the process that we
followed while we were still in Salt Lake City before we left for Quartzsite,
but what I'm showing you now is the actual product of what we created before we left.
These are the actual results we got, and you can see I've got a green pin which
was available for us to move our service into approximately eight miles away from our campsite.
Now looking south of our campsite you don't see many pins marked down here. That's because it
readily became obvious that there was no Starlink service
being offered down in that area, so why waste my time? Whereas you can easily see the boundaries
of where Starlink is not offered and where it's available but full, by these yellow pins.
Now simultaneously as I was creating that map I was also creating a spreadsheet to make it
easier to try to improve upon our results. I made columns for the pin number, the plus code,
whether or not Starlink was being offered at that location, a distance code from 0 to 99 (so if
it was 2.7 miles away that got a score of 27). Also finally, whether or not the area was full.
That way I could simply filter this spreadsheet based on whether or not service was offered. I
could sort it on distance, and then check any of those plus codes from a distance score of 0 to 79
by simply copying and pasting that plus code into my Starlink account page.
Now one final note: this is not something you need to go through every single time you move Starlink.
This is for those circumstances where Starlink is not being offered at your camping location,
and you are looking for a spot within a reasonable distance
that you can sign up to move your service address.
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