Stereo Tool

Hello, I have a doubt, has anyone used Starlink with the micrompx decoder? how was the quality if using 800kbs, mainly regarding the latency, I ask because the ptp for the TX would be of high cost due to the structure of the tower! another question would be how much data does the micrompx decoder at 800kbs use for 30 days straight?

I am fortunate to have both a telestrial based internet feed, along with a Starlink feed. Am testing MPX where I am sending from Stereo Tool on a fixed IP/telestrial link and have a Pi-4 doing decoding on the Starlink service.

From the limited testing so far, my findings are -:

* The lower the bandwidth the better. 320k - 384k seems to be fine (v4)
* Latency and bandwidth are not really the issue here - jitter is - with ping times varying here from 32ms to over 70ms.
* Even with low to no "obstructions", you may see packet loss of a second or two (especially on low overhead satellite count), so error correction is extremely important.
* While it seems and sounds excessive, I have found sending error recovery packets every 32 packets, and sending 8 recovery packets was a good starting point.
* On the MPX receiving end, give the decoder sufficent time to buffer data - runing between 3-5 seconds is ideal (may need more if you are running SFN).
* It will also vary where you are, available ground stations and their uplink/sat downlink bandwidth utilisation and if you are in a high usage/saturated cell.

It can get fustrating. You think everything is fine and 12hrs later you are hearing data loss for no reason, so it is definitely not a set-go-and-forget task. Test, test, test!

Data usage: Over a 24hr period at 320k stream was averaging around 4.3Gb per 24hr period. Remember, adding error correction (and lots of it) will add to the actual bandwidth stream. Stereo Tool will give you a good a idea (Average Bit Rate) which does help.

Hope that helps.

Ross