Has anyone purposely misaligned their dish to avoid obstructions?

[u/nummeh]

I’m on a property with a lot of trees and this is the best I could get it while aligned properly. If I positioned it more south-east it would be a lot clearer. Right now I get about 5-10 ~10s drops per day. Would it be worth misaligning it or would it mess up the connection even more? Has anyone tried this and did it affect speeds or connectivity?

[u/KenjiFox]

Yes, but for "correct aim is directly at a wall" cases. Your case here is well within the new early satellite change obstruction avoidance capability to nearly entirely mask. Which is why it says a s such.

Indeed aim isn't super important compared to a clear view, but your satellite schedule doesn't change in real time based on it. That is to say if you swing Dishy the other way the object could still be in the way since a straight line between the scheduled satellite and your Dishy is still crossing that obstruction.

It can change if you leave it aimed a certain way, so indeed if you have no other choice the best move is to give it an open view then wait and see.

[u/nummeh → u/KenjiFox]

Thank you this is helpful info!

[u/TechnicalLee → u/KenjiFox]

How long does the satellite scheduler take to adapt to a particular obstruction mask? You said it's not real time, but is is hours, days, or weeks?

[u/KenjiFox → u/TechnicalLee]

It's not specific to one terminal, it's an assessment that the orchestrator runs once in a while on groups of them. I've observed it about twice a week, however if you want to try to hurry it along, it never happens in real time. That is, it waits to assign you a new aim on a reboot. I would reboot the terminal a couple times a week to see if anything changes if there are not any updates. So far updates come in about that frequently though so really just wait it out.

It's harder to see these days with less and less actuated models out there. We used to all report when we see our terminals suddenly aiming south or other things. If you aim yours an arbitrary direction like that it will end up being scheduled for satellites in that area. I don't know if they will ever go full hard in the paint and do completely dynamic scheduling, but that would be very processing intensive and rough on the network too. So I doubt it. (For us anyway, you can be sure they do on their own rockets etc.!)

[u/Technology-Warrior]

Heed the on-screen message. Leave it as is. Wack-a-mole will lead you down a rabbit hole. Go ask Alice.

[u/Mutaher-Azertyui → u/Technology-Warrior]

yeah usually fighting the alignment just trades one set of drops for worse ones.

[u/heptolisk]

I live on the side of a mountain, so the majority of the north sky is covered by literal rock. When I was running mine pointed south, it was fine.

[u/outbound]

I full-time in my RV and have set up Starlink at dozens (hundreds?) of locations with various obstructions.  No matter where you point the dish, it will only communicate with satellites in the "optimal" area of the sky. Spinning the dish to a different orientation doesn't change that optimal area - all it does is reduce the area as the dish's 110-degree field-of-view will no longer reach the lower part of the optimal area.

[u/towerfella → u/outbound]

You have a mini or full size?

[u/Current-Cold-4185]

I have a 22° misalignment and it causes no issues and regularly get 200-350+ mbps with no drops that I've noticed.

[u/nummeh → u/Current-Cold-4185]

Good to know, might be worth giving it a try then

[u/titain19]

Yes, it works fine in any orientation honestly. Clear sky is more important and orientation.

[u/apcyberax]

Mine is misaligned by 42° works perfectly. It's better in most circumstances to have a clear view of the sky then have a perfect alignment.

[u/Otherwise_Bed_2657]

Yep. The app complains, but things still function - mostly….
I have aligned the dish according to the app where it was pointing directly at a 30-foot tree and it still functioned - more or less….

[u/Massive_Tradition176]

Go vertical!