Starlink Splice: Shielded Jacks/Plugs Needed? Do Shielding and Drain Wire Need to be Continuous?

Thread Starter

Art Duino

Joined Nov 30, 2017
52
I got myself a Starlink dish. Sadly, it comes with giant plugs on the cable, and I have to put it through my wall. In order to avoid drilling an enormous hole, I followed dubious Internet advice and used RJ45 stuff to splice the cable.

I got fine download speeds after that, but I got errors, and I got very bad upload speeds. Like 0.4 Mbps. Before that, Ookla was giving me 1.5-35.

I did not use a shielded plug or jack. Just stuff from Home Depot. I did not reconnect the drain wire or put any kind of connection between the shielding on either side of the cut.

Is it likely my problems are caused by the 1.5" of lack of shielding, the discontinuity of the shielding, or the discontinuity of the drain wire? I am willing to get whatever plugs, jacks, and tools I need. I am not willing to put a huge hole in my house.
 

Dodgydave

Joined Jun 22, 2012
11,285
The dish comes with a 75 ohm coaxial cable moulded plug, it uses the cable to power the dish and obtain the signal , you can't join it with ordinary wire.
 

Thread Starter

Art Duino

Joined Nov 30, 2017
52
I got myself a package of shielded plugs and an Ideal FT-45 crimping tool. Crazy expensive considering how little it does, but I live in a cow town, so I took what they had. Put a new shielded plug on the cable and used a jumper to connect the grounds between the dish end and router end. My speeds are normal now. My guess is that I had bad contact on the original RJ45 because I did not have the proper tools or any idea what I was doing.

I have shielded jacks coming from Amazon, so I should have a nice seamless connection when I install the dish on the roof and go through the wall.
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,180
OK, there is something missing because the signal picked up by the dish usually travels via a coaxial cable to a" receiver box" and from that there will be some sort of cable, often a 4-twisted pair ethernet cable . And RJ45 connectors only have 8 positions, so that extra wire was probably the shield, which IS IMPORTANT.
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,180
There is no coax anywhere.
OK, no coax anywhere. Then the receive circuit must be directly at the antenna circuit connection, and likewise all of the digital portion. VERY INTERESTING INDEED.
The RJ45connectors are not usually at all weather resistant But if it is inside that will not be an issue. My guess is that the extra conductor and shield are a critical part of the power circuit. That is useful information indeed.
 

Thread Starter

Art Duino

Joined Nov 30, 2017
52
A company called Truecable makes really nice shielded jacks that are very easy to install. I received two today, and I used one to complete my dish installation.

It's surprising how little information is available regarding Starlink. I guess it doesn't get a lot of attention because most people don't need Starlink.
 
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