The first time Jeremy and I moved into the van, we didn’t care about connectivity. In fact, we judged our campsites by how bad our cell service was. No service meant we found a great spot. However, working remotely for my new internship requires internet. Sigh.
In case you didn’t know, vans are giant faraday cages, and cell signals have a hard time making inside the van. Enter the cellular router with cellular antenna.
The antenna sits on top of the van and turns a weak cell signal into a stronger one, kind of like weBoost, but better, and more expensive. A million cables run from the antenna to the router, where the SIM card lives. Okay, like ten cables, but that’s still a lot.
These cables are 15-feet long! And our router is like a foot from the antenna, so there is a giant coil of cables taking up precious storage space in one of our cabinets because I’m too chicken shit to attempt to cut the cables shorter and splice them back together (I don’t even know if splice is the right word, which is one of the many reasons I opted to lose storage space). The router then does what routers do and shits out a Wi-Fi signal. Voila! Internet! If we have cell service. Enter Starlink.
Thanks to Elon, tons of digital nomads are enjoying fast-enough-to-work-remotely internet in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to be one of those digital nomads. But I didn’t want to power Starlink from AC. Even though dear Elon has a mobile plan designed for people who travel, complete with an expensive overlanding rig sitting in the desert with a Starlink antenna next to it pictured on the plan web page, Starlink’s only power option is still AC. Good job, Elon.
Thankfully, the good folks on the interwebs have found a way to power Starlink from DC and shared their sorcery with the rest of the world. I followed the instructions from this article, choosing the most expensive option because again, I’m a chicken shit when it comes to cutting wires.
I still had to cut wires.
A Starlink cable snaking through an open window or door while it’s raining because I need to work is not my idea of fun. To avoid this, I found a weatherproof RJ45 connector to mount on the van.
The weatherproof end that connects to the van from the dishy requires you to cut off the end of an ethernet cable, slide the naked end through the connector, and put a shiny new ethernet plug on the naked end. Had I known that I would have chosen the cheaper option. Oh well. Mistakes were made. Lessons were learned.
When I bought my cellular router, I got lucky because I bought the only brand that is certified to be compatible with Starlink. Peplink. Pepwave. I feel like the words are used interchangeably to describe brand. I’m easily confused. Word on the webs was that with the updated firmware version your connection would show a little Starlink X on the router dashboard. Then you could stow Starlink without the app using some other router-related dashboard called InControl2. Sweet beans!
The first time I plugged in Starlink I needed to use Elon’s stupid AC-powered router so I could bypass said router. Done! Then I unplugged the ol’ dishy from Elon’s router, plugged it into a cable adapter, and plugged the freshly minted weatherproof ethernet into the van.
Starlink did its thing, spinning around like a magician commanded it to search for a signal in the stars. The router said it had interwebs from the port that Starlink was connected to! Success!
Wait. Where’s the Starlink X? How do I stow Starlink? What did I fuck up? Maybe I need the router app instead of using the dashboard in a browser?
I downloaded the router app, and this stupid popup made it useless, constantly trying to get me to renew PrimeCare. Huh. The InControl2 dashboard also told me that my PrimeCare warranty was expired but was not obnoxious about it. That’s great and all, but I don’t give a fuck about my warranty, I want to stow my fucking Starlink! Gears turned in my head and I began to wonder if PrimeCare was more than a warranty.
To find out, I took a $180 gamble and bought PrimeCare (the annual fee for the fancy tier of PrimeCare; the cheaper one was only $130). As soon as my PrimeCare was activated, the Starlink X appeared and InControl2 gave me the option to stow Starlink. Hurray!
I was so ready to hit the road and work.
A month later, we’re headed to Sequoia National Park so I can meet some folks I’ll be working with virtually during my internship. Since I had classes for school the first day, the supervisor lady told me not to show up until after class. Perfect! We stayed at the dorms in park housing, and I envisioned sleeping in a little, doing a bit of work and homework in my PJs while sipping coffee, and enjoying a leisurely morning.
The dorms said, “Fuck you!” No cell service. No Wi-Fi. What was once a dream come true became a nightmare. A handy note on the dorm fridge told us to go to the visitor center right down the street for connectivity.
In the morning, I got dressed, hopped in the van, and drove to the visitor center, hoping the Wi-Fi signal would reach the van so I could work in warmth and comfort. The visitor center also said, “Fuck you!”
A kind maintenance worker named Andy started chatting me up, telling me our arrival the previous night caused quite a stir in housing. As a fine representative of the folks who live in housing, Andy probed as to the purpose of my presence. I explained my situation and told him we only planned to stay two nights. I also told him why I was at the visitor center. He told me a lot of folks got a good signal at the picnic area across the street. Good to know!
The good idea fairy sprinkled me with fairy dust, and instead of heading to the picnic area, I stayed in the visitor center parking lot and pulled the dishy out of garage. What’s the point of lugging around the dishy and paying $150 a month for Starlink if we don’t use it!
When I tested out Starlink the first time, I climbed up the tiny footholds in the garage, onto the bed platform, and put dishy on the roof. Sure, now the mattress was on the bed flatform, and the bug net was installed so I couldn’t even access the bed, but how hard could it be to get the dishy up to the roof?
Fucking hard.
Back before I started grad school while working full time, I was in shape. And I don’t mean “round because it’s a shape.” I mean I was fit. I lifted weights and ran regularly, training for Spartans and ultramarathons. Then I started grad school and my free time evaporated. I am now a noodle, and I feel so weak I wonder how I manage to even move from Point A to Point B while carrying my backpack stuffed with two laptops.
My noodley arms were not up to pulling my fluffy, out-of-shape ass up itty-bitty footholds with little maneuverability while carrying the heavy-ass dishy. With the dishy in my left hand and one finger from my right hand curled around the latch for the back doors, I tried pulling myself up high enough to set the dishy on the roof.
My foot slipped. It hit a six-pack of beer in the garage. Beer cans tumbling into the parking lot. My one finger held on with all it had. My body swung away from the van.
My left hand wanted to let go of the dishy. It wanted to grab on to something else and save me. My brain thought of how fucking expensive the dishy was. It overruled the instincts of my left hand.
To save the dishy, I sacrificed myself. The dishy’s metal base crashed into my nose as it swung down and away from the van. I maintained my grip, both on the dishy and the rear door latch. I managed to gently set the dishy down before grabbing my nose to check for blood.
There was blood.
The dishy almost broke my nose. I rushed to the side of the van, flung the door open, and grabbed the toilet paper. After stuffing my schnoz with TP, I grabbed the dishy, put it in the living area and closed the back. Perhaps the picnic area wasn’t such a bad idea because I could set the dishy up on a picnic table instead of trying to break myself and the dishy.
At the picnic area, I plugged in the dishy, set it on a picnic table, and turned on the router. Within a couple of minutes my phone and laptop connected to the van Wi-Fi. I went to the router dashboard and only saw a cellular connection. WTF?!
Luckily, I didn’t have shit to do in class, so I fucked around with Starlink instead. What if I power up the dishy before the router? Nope. What if I power up the router before the dishy? Nope! The Starlink app says it’s connected, why the fuck doesn’t the router see it?! Fuck it. My nose hurts. I’m already exhausted. I don’t care. I’ll figure it out some other day. Or I won’t.
And I went about my day.
The next day, and my last day in Sequoia, the supervisor lady told me to take care of my internet situation because it was important for work since we live in the van. This warmed my heart and eased a bunch of stress. So did the hike she assigned me, but that’s another story.
Back at the van, Jeremy dug out our crate of important van things, and I fished out the ethernet tester thingamajig (technical term). I tested the ethernet connection from the van bumper to the router. Supposedly it was all good. Then why the fuck wasn’t it working?!
I read the instructions. Do not test on a POE because the tester thingamajig might explode (okay, it would just damage the tester thingamajig, not explode).
Hmm. I just tested a POE connection (power over ethernet). The tester thingamajig did not explode, and it appeared to still be functioning properly. So, I tested just the short ethernet cable from the POE thingy that sent power to the dishy and sent the dishy signal to the router. Only five of the eight connections were good. Houston, we have a problem.
If an ethernet cable was going to shit itself, I assumed it would be the one that started outside the van. First, the awesome weatherproof connector broke, and the ethernet plug hangs out in the bumper unprotected. Second, it’s the longest cable, so there’s more opportunities for it to get fucked up. Yet, the short cable that goes from the bottom of one cabinet to the top of another shits the bed. Sigh.
Obviously, to fix this problem, we need a new ethernet cable. A robust ethernet cable. An armored ethernet cable that can stand up to rodents, and hopefully whatever the van throws at it. Then we need to route it. This was not easy when the van was half torn apart and there was okay access to the cable looms. I can’t imagine it’ll be any easier this time around.
When you live in a van, you expect things to go wrong and for things to break. As a result, we brought Elon’s AC-powered router with us just in case. Thank goodness. Whilst in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, we can have cords snaking in and out of the van with the inverter sucking up extra power so I can work and do homework (and blog, though I guess that’s less important).
Ah, vanlife.