Obstruction Viewer
For Starlink

If using Starlink router, please go to your STARLINK Debug Panel
After a few seconds, you will see code. Click anywhere in the area where you see the code, hit CTRL key + A. This will select the code in blue.

Now hit CTRL+C. This copies all the information.

Come back to this page, click in the white box on the right and paste (CTRL+V) your code into the box. A graph will appear if you have obstructions. If not, you will see a thumbs up and are good!

User avatar
THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL STARLINK SITE
IT IS A FAN DRIVEN TOOL BUILT TO ASSIST YOU
You can find me lurking in /r/Starlink

Q: So how does all this voodoo work?

By pasting your dish data in this tool, we can read the debug infomation to retrieve where obstructions may be occuring.
Click here to load sample data into the tool and read on.

Honestly, we aren't 100% sure how the dish calculates the obstructions. We assume that if it has satellite lock and it loses connection or dropped packets/pings while it expects to be connected, it records the direction that it has an obstruction in. From the reports the users have submitted after using this tool, it has helped them track the problematic directions.

Q: How do I interpret the radar graph?

Imagine your are standing facing north, from above, looking down at Dishy (who is pointing at the sky looking for satellites). Each of those wedges is the rough direction of the obstruction.

  • 0 Degrees is True North
  • 90 Degress is East
  • 180 Degrees is South
  • 270 Degrees is West

Q: How long does it take after moving the dish to report obstructions?

A quote from Reddit user MaverickCheats

It's pretty accurate after 1-2 hours (after a reboot) but it depends how long it took the dish to find a Sattelite.


Q: How do I interpret the debug log for obstructions?

The debug data contains a list of obstruction values. This tool focuses on the wedgeFractionObstructedList which may look like this:

"wedgeFractionObstructedList": [
0.17215327978134155,
0,
0,
0.0682035082578659,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0.12659987449646,
0,
0,
0
]

Ideally all those numbers should be 0. If they are all 0's, you are obstruction free.
Each line is a 30 degree wedge and starts from True North

1st line/wedge would be between North and North-North-East
2nd line/wedge would be North-North-East to North-East-East
3rd line/wedge would be North-East-East to East
etc etc

In this scenario, we have 3 obstruction wedges.

I convert the decimal into a percentage by multiplying the value x 100.
So in the above example, line 1 - 0.17215 (Between North and North-North-East) has a 17% obstruction.
The higher the percentage, the more downtime you will experience.

100% in this tool or 1 in the debug log means all attempts at communication in that direction is obstructed.
Obviously, this is very bad. You need to move your dish.

Q: What do the exact values mean?

We can only assume it is % of time the satellite was obstructed while trying to commmunicate with dishy or that 17% of the wedge is obstructed. The former seems more reasonable. Maybe SpaceX can reach out and give me the actual calculations.

Q: Moving my Dish: Do you have any tips for me?

  • Always use the starlink app obstruction viewer first. It is a good rough gauge of your obstructions.
    When using the app, make sure you are using it at the same level or directly below the dish.
  • Make sure your dish is pointed true north when installing.
  • Stow and unplug power whenever you move dishy. Be sure that the starlink router light is a solid light and not blinking before unplugging
  • Work on your highest % obstructions Focusing on Northern ones first and Southern ones last.