Air Stream Connected, Wi-Fi

[saltbreez]

Per the 2023 Bambi Owners Manual:

"Your trailer has the Airstream Connected Kit pre wiring and is ready for dealer installation"

I want to remove the stock TV antenna and in it's place flat mount a satelite dish in it's place. I am asking about the possibility of using this "Airstream Connected Kit pre wiring" to connect the Starlink dish to the Bambi internals?


Christian

[saltbreez]

Has anyone tried and succeeded at placing a Starlink square dish on top of a Bambi Airstream using Everlander's flat Mount dish? I want to remove the television antenna from the top of my 19 ft* Airstream Bambi and replace it with this flat mount kit.* I've got questions about how the cabling would get from* the television antennas area* down *to the electronics area of the interior Bambi.

[saltbreez]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRSnTMrUPrQ&t=1280s

https://www.amazon.com/Starlink-Dish...0CN2NF773?th=1

[JeffKim]

Originally Posted by saltbreez

Per the 2023 Bambi Owners Manual:

"Your trailer has the Airstream Connected Kit pre wiring and is ready for dealer installation"

I want to remove the stock TV antenna and in it's place flat mount a satelite dish in it's place. I am asking about the possibility of using this "Airstream Connected Kit pre wiring" to connect the Starlink dish to the Bambi internals?


Christian

Unfortunately, Starlink is a proprietary Cat6 Ethernet POE (power over ethernet) and the AS Connected is a 2x2 MIMO antenna cable (2 LTE wires and 2 Wi-fi) running from the round disk on the roof to somewhere in your cabinets (not sure where in the Bambi). The TV antenna wire is probably coax, so that won't work either. In any case you'd have to fish the Starlink cable from the roof through which I haven't read of anyone doing.

I didn't get a chance to look at the flat mount video you posted, and maybe this is a good choice for some people. Most people use a pole system to get as much height as possible to get a clear view of the sky and let it do its thing to point in the most optimal direction. Trees and obstructions are Starlink's only downfall. Ours works great with a clear view, otherwise we have cellular modem as backup (since I work remotely).

Here's a rather lengthy discussion but it touches on a number of issues installing Starlink and a number of approaches. There are a lot of other threads in the forums as well and YouTubes.

There's also the approach to mount the dishy on a truck bed (if you have a truck). Starting here are some installations.

[JeffKim]

I was curious what the advantage to flat mounting the dishy and got around to looking at the video (30+ min, I skimmed). Apologies, about 83% of what I posted you already know from the video (the AS Connected part might be useful). I can see since they are mobile and can position their van with a clear view or are on the road and it makes some sense to flat mount it. From my experience, however, campsites can be under trees but elevating 25' or so with the pole gets a clear view or I can use the dishy stand and move it to a clearer view. So just wondering if this is a very robust solution for a trailer.

In the video he has the same MoFi cellular modem I have and I can attest that it's a great product. Using the AS Connected portal to connect a cellular antenna which doesn't care about trees might be a better way to go if you want cellular as a backup to Starlink. Just sayin.

[saltbreez]

Originally Posted by JeffKim

I was curious what the advantage to flat mounting the dishy and got around to looking at the video (30+ min, I skimmed). Apologies, about 83% of what I posted you already know from the video (the AS Connected part might be useful). I can see since they are mobile and can position their van with a clear view or are on the road and it makes some sense to flat mount it. From my experience, however, campsites can be under trees but elevating 25' or so with the pole gets a clear view or I can use the dishy stand and move it to a clearer view. So just wondering if this is a very robust solution for a trailer.

In the video he has the same MoFi cellular modem I have and I can attest that it's a great product. Using the AS Connected portal to connect a cellular antenna which doesn't care about trees might be a better way to go if you want cellular as a backup to Starlink. Just sayin.

Take a look at the first pic in my new member introduction post; I used a 10' tripod back then, but decided it was overkill. Today, I mount on top of my Rav4 at the moment, but, tommrow I want a no-hassel permnent mount that I don't have to get soaked to set up at night.

[JeffKim]

Originally Posted by saltbreez

Take a look at the first pic in my new member introduction post; I used a 10' tripod back then, but decided it was overkill. Today, I mount on top of my Rav4 at the moment, but, tommrow I want a no-hassel permnent mount that I don't have to get soaked to set up at night.

Thanks, I wasn't aware you had Starlink already and a pole. I have the Harbor Freight telescoping flag pole jack-mounted system which works pretty well, but I use it maybe 1/2 the time and otherwise have it on the stand. I see your point, but I'd still argue you will be giving up some connectivity for the convenience. I'm interested in how it works out, please keep us posted.