[HN Gopher] How to modify Starlink Mini to run without the built...
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How to modify Starlink Mini to run without the built-in WiFi router
Author : LorenDB
Score : 234 points
Date : 2025-06-15 12:40 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (olegkutkov.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (olegkutkov.me)
| Aspos wrote:
| I know exactly what power-constrained application you have in
| mind, Oleg, and I like it.
| 100721 wrote:
| What is the specific use case you have in mind?
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Well the author is Ukranian so I have a guess.
| michaelt wrote:
| Given that the blogger is based in Kiev, Ukraine? Good chance
| this goes on some sort of long range, Predator-style drone.
| mft_ wrote:
| Wouldn't this give Starlink the ability to track and/or
| turn off operations in real time?
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Yes but they've mostly not been doing that (they probably
| are selling a lot of dishes) and what's the alternative?
| michaelt wrote:
| Yes, you may recall some controversy a few years back
| when Musk made some threats along those lines.
|
| There are alternatives if you only need short range, or
| if you can tolerate high latency. And of course there are
| fire-and-forget cruise missiles that don't need
| communications at all.
|
| But there aren't all that many other options.
| Historically, satellite internet companies like Iridium,
| Globalstar and Teledesic have not fared well.
| lxgr wrote:
| Iridium works extremely well for what it was designed for
| - truly global, low latency communications without
| requiring a directional antenna. Unfortunately, that also
| means very low data rates.
|
| It only gained packed-switched data with the second
| generation satellite network, but data rates are still
| very low (think hundreds of kbps, and I believe even that
| needs high-gain antennas).
| NitpickLawyer wrote:
| ~Iridium~ devices were bricked in the first days of the
| invasion, iirc. That's why starlink was such a big deal,
| and that's why the usmil wanted it "yesterday" after it
| proved itself in ua. They had to set up a dedicated unit
| to deal with starlink, as every branch was trying to get
| it on their own and complicated purchasing. That unit /
| project was also called starshield, confusing the matter
| with the other starshield project that uses starlink
| buses + ng sensor packages.
|
| edit: it was Viasat not Iridium, I got them mixed up.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| Viasat fixed modems got bricked at start of the war in
| Ukraine and some collateral one's in border areas.
| NitpickLawyer wrote:
| You are right, thanks. I mixed them up. Iridium is also
| providing service in ua now, and was unaffected at the
| start of the war.
| snickerdoodle12 wrote:
| Interesting how the US goes absolutely ballistic about
| some random dude violating the "Computer Security Act" on
| a small scale, but didn't react at all to this massive,
| incredibly impactful, attack.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| it didn't impact Americans. it impacted us Europeans but
| at the time this went down we were too dependent on
| Russia's cheap gas (and, frankly, lacked the military
| power) to raise the appropriate level of stink.
|
| Hell we let Russia freely execute dissidents (Skripal or
| the Berlin Tiergarten murder come to my mind) and
| tolerated a land-grab war by little green men in 2014.
| Either of these actions would have warranted _serious_
| consequences, the Crimea /Donbas grab would be a casus
| belli if you ask me. But again, we were too busy sucking
| Putin off for cheap gas.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| "Some" is an understatement lol. Here in Germany 3.800
| (!) wind turbines lost remote control (and thus were
| forced offline) until the terminals could be changed
| because their command uplink was via Viasat.
| maxlin wrote:
| It was only made to appear a controversy for clicks and
| Ukrainians (understandably) trying to bend the rules.
|
| The thing came with a clear limit "this thing works in
| these cells of this big hex grid". And they drove it off
| that hex grid. Plan and simple.
|
| Its like if the US-supplied HIMARS came with some built-
| in limit that it cannot be used to target known Russian
| nuclear installments, and they'd try to do that.
|
| It's not that those things are unquestionable, but they
| are limits that would need US consultation as US
| obviously doesn't want the thing to escalate from being a
| defensive war to something else.
| karp773 wrote:
| Is Crimea on "this big hex grid" or not? If not, why not?
| coryrc wrote:
| Because the US military/govt has a say in what US
| companies sell to foreign militaries and that's what the
| restrictions were at the time. Remember this was early on
| in the full invasion.
| TMWNN wrote:
| Starlink is prohibited for use in Crimea because of US
| sanctions against Russia, and not because "Musk turned
| Starlink off during a Ukrainian attack".
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| I wonder how SL plans vary in Ukraine / for use in Russia.
| Assuming US-like pricing and limitations, for low speed
| drones, this would work. The gotcha is that for jet or fast
| prop drones in the 250-478 kts range requires a very
| expensive aviation plan assuming it's similar to US plans.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Could that not also be part of the support being provided
| to Ukraine in that those prices are not the same as some
| commercial account? At the end of the day, the billing
| department could just not issue the bill, or any other
| method of meaning Ukraine isn't paying for it.
| Aspos wrote:
| AFAIK US DoD pays for some of the Starlink accounts in
| Ukraine. The rest are paid for by volunteers at normal
| prices.
| kubelsmieci wrote:
| "As of May 2024, Poland continues to pay subcription fees
| for more than 20 thousand terminals it has bought for
| Ukraine"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-
| Ukrain...
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Maybe just for front-line deployment, it would suck to be
| targeted by a glide bomb because the Russians located some
| WiFi signal.
| tomaskafka wrote:
| I am not sure - afaik there is a speed limit (assumption of
| satellite visibility and specific latency?) over which
| starlink won't work, right? It can however be useful for
| getting the internet without announcing yourself to a swarm
| of drones?
| gruez wrote:
| >I am not sure - afaik there is a speed limit (assumption
| of satellite visibility and specific latency?) over which
| starlink won't work, right?
|
| The author's youtube channel also contains a video of him
| doing a speedtest on a starlink mini while driving on a
| highway.
| michaelt wrote:
| Starlink satellites orbit at 17,000 miles per hour, so I
| doubt receivers lose signal just from going at a few
| hundred miles per hour.
|
| Unless there's a software limit built in that turns them
| off, or the drone's doing some crazy high-G-force
| acrobatics.
| codedokode wrote:
| Russians also use Musk's satellites and might find the
| information useful.
|
| Also as I understand, satellites do not work over Russian
| territory so guess where this can be used.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Actually, they do work is Russia. You need account
| registered in some allowed country and also use RV plan
| (or maybe it is called 'roam' now). I know some ppl who
| use it. Was thinking to get one myself, to have a
| reliable bypass of pathetic russian firewall.
| neilv wrote:
| I hope that technical engineers and scientists contributing
| to asymmetric warfare technology there aren't designated
| high-value targets by the adversary.
|
| Wouldn't publicity paint a target on one's back?
| stephen_g wrote:
| Seems likely, just a risk one has to take if you want to
| actively contribute to a war effort...
| tenuousemphasis wrote:
| Based on recent events I would guess an explosive-laden
| drone.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Riding piggy back on a drone?
| someothherguyy wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIt3pHOMxwpTXTgIVB_N1Gg
| rozhok wrote:
| Starlink is already used for <<Nemesis>> night bombers as well
| as <<Magura>> sea drones.
| donohoe wrote:
| Archived version: https://archive.ph/UTFTK
| 15155 wrote:
| Fascinating that they chose to use modulated board-to-board
| Ethernet instead of just running RGMII from MAC to MAC.
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| A lot of this is pretty POC-y. Agree digital to analog to
| analog to digital is kinda inefficient, and in the abstract MAC
| to PHY (which is probably what you mean when you say MAC to
| MAC) with RGMII is probably better. My off the cuff guess is
| that it is likely the written-up interface is easier to access
| or requires less diving into internals. Not sure where the
| RGMII lines are, and depending on the design of the Starlink
| mini itself (I am ignorant of this) the lines might have been
| buried deeper and less accessible, who knows.
| msgodel wrote:
| Ethernet seems far easier to prototype with. There's almost no
| off the shelf stuff for talking to RGMII whereas Ethernet you
| can just plug into your laptop for testing. If it's two
| different teams building things it seems like it would be a lot
| easier to just agree on Ethernet as the interface and then
| delay integration testing or release earlier.
| 15155 wrote:
| A $3 breakout PCB with an RGMII PHY and MagJack on it would
| solve this problem without resorting to analog communication.
| msgodel wrote:
| Assembly isn't free, either an engineer or the PCB
| fabricator has to put that together. Also the design isn't
| free and it's certainly not necessarily going to match the
| behavior of the device on the other side.
|
| But your laptop's Ethernet adapter comes free with your
| laptop (both in terms of money and waiting to get it since
| it's already on your desk) and possibly even more
| importantly you know the laptop manufacturer and users have
| QAed it for you so it's absolutely going to behave the way
| you expect which is important when the device you're
| designing isn't behaving.
| 15155 wrote:
| > Assembly isn't free, either an engineer or the PCB
| fabricator has to put that together
|
| > your laptop's Ethernet adapter
|
| The device as-designed likely wouldn't work with your
| laptop's ethernet adapter - hence why the author of TFA
| placed an isolation transformer and jack ...on a breakout
| board.
| msgodel wrote:
| Heh I didn't notice it didn't have the isolation
| transformer. That is odd.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the entire point of the exercise.
| There's already an RJ45 jack on the Mini, so no need to hack
| the unit to get access to an Ethernet PHY. And the WiFi router
| can be turned off via the setup page.
|
| Did they remove support for the Ethernet jack on the Minis
| available in Ukraine? It looks like it's still present on the
| WiFi board, next to the power jack.
| closewith wrote:
| You might imagine some use cases where mass is a critical
| concern.
| dogben wrote:
| They may want to make absolutly sure no wifi signal emit from
| the device. Turning it off in the setup page is definitely
| not enough.
|
| The wifi chip may emit signal during boot. The device may get
| accidentally reset in the field. SpaceX may push an update
| that messes with the settings.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I mean, more power to them, certainly, but WiFi emissions
| seem like the least of your concerns when you're operating
| an antenna for satellite comms. There will be no shortage
| of side lobes at Ku band for anyone who cares to listen.
|
| Cutting down on mass would make sense, though.
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| It will still draw power with wifi turned off, though
| much less. The most effective way of reducing the P in
| swap is to remove the unit entirely
| jpm_sd wrote:
| RGMII isn't really designed to go board-to-board, fairly high
| data rates, and ideally all of the signals should be delay
| matched. That gets a bit trickier when there are two boards
| involved. Also I would expect EMI/EMC issues.
|
| I know people do that sort of thing for evaluation kits, but it
| doesn't seem like a good idea for production.
| cdg007 wrote:
| good to know
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| What SoC does Starlink use? Broadcom?
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| MediaTek
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