RV FEATURE
Today, Starlink offers another two choices: Starlink Home and Starlink Mini. Both are considerably smaller, more portable and offer more features than the original system. At the time of writing this review, both systems cost $ 549. So which system should you purchase? Well, thanks to our mates at Cowfish Technologies, who supplied me with one of each, I’ ve been able to put them to the test and compare them to our original Gen 2 system. Here’ s what I discovered.
THE TEST LOCATION
I do need to point out a few things about the place where I did this testing. It’ s a mate’ s property in Monegeetta, about 25km from Melbourne. It’ s an interesting place. There is little to no mobile phone reception and even television is patchy at best. There are no obstructions to affect the Starlink reception. The weather was cool and overcast.
Caravan construction can have an effect on wi-fi performance. Our Roadstar is of full composite construction, which allows radio signals to pass through better than metal-skinned vans.
Bluetti Australia provided us with a range of portable lithium power stations for this comparison.
Some geological anomalies in the area have a negative effect on radio-based communications.
There were no mains 240V power sources nearby so we used Bluetti portable lithium power stations. One was the AC50B, which we reviewed recently. The other two were the new BackPack systems, which we will review in a later issue. These provided a consistent 240V power supply as well as an accurate watt-meter to measure power consumption.
SIZE DOES MATTER
Whether you’ re travelling in a caravan, camper trailer or a motorhome, storage space is always at a premium so the size of these systems, once packed up, is extremely important. It’ s no surprise to hear that our original Gen 2 is the bulkiest and the heaviest of the three.
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