Handheld Starlink Satellite detector

Starlink has been in the news a lot lately, partly for its revolutionary satellite internet service and partly for its supposed impacts on astronomy. While I can’t afford an actual Starlink ground station / Dishy, I heard that some of their transmissions are detectable with common household items! Well, maybe common for me, with a garage full of electronics garbage. And only the beacon or tracking signals, not the actual internet data.

Anyway, all you need for this is a software defined radio (SDR) like this one, and a universal satellite dish LNB like this. You don’t even need the actual dish, the Starlink satellites are so low and broadcast so strongly that the LNB by itself can hear them.

I hooked it up to my handheld Picorder and voila!