Starlink Dish Placement – Which Direction Should It Face?

What do you think of when you picture a satellite dish? If you’re like me, you picture a common DirecTV satellite dish mounted on a roof, aimed south to get a signal. Does the same strategy apply to Starlink?

Starlink dishes are very different from stereotypical satellite TV dishes. In terms of aiming, it all depends on your location. In this guide I’ll explain how to determine which direction your Starlink should face, as well as how to properly align it.

How to Figure Out Your Starlink’s Direction

The direction that your Starlink dish will face depends on where you live in the world. Not all Starlink’s point the same way. For example, my dish wants to face north northwest. If you live in a different part of the world, your dish might want to face southwest.

The Starlink app (available on iOS and Android) has a neat tool that you can use to determine which direction your Starlink will face. It uses the camera on your smartphone to scan the sky. Technically it’s supposed to scan for potential obstructions, like trees, but it also shows you which direction Starlink needs to point.

Step 1: Choose a good location

Find a good mounting location for your Starlink dish. It’s best to install Starlink as high up on your roof as possible. If you aren’t sure about that yet, you can just stand in an open area of your yard.

Step 2: Use the Starlink obstruction scanner

Download the Starlink app if you don’t already have it. Open the app and tap “Start setup”. Select the type of Starlink you purchased. If you aren’t sure, select “Standard”, then tap “Confirm”. Now hit “Check for obstructions” to open the scanning tool. You may need to give the Starlink app permission to use your camera. That’s what it uses to scan the sky.

Once the tool loads up, tap “I’m ready!” to start scanning. Follow the instructions on the screen, rotating all around until the scan is complete.

Scanning the sky for Starlink obstructions

Step 3: Get your direction from the results

After the scan is complete, you’ll see the estimated obstructions for the mounting location you chose. The obstruction map is filled in with red and blue areas, with red indicating potential obstructions that can block the Starlink signal.

There is also an arrow next to the Starlink dish on the obstruction map. That arrow tells you which direction your Starlink will face. As you can see from the screenshot below, Starlink wants my dish to face north northwest.

Starlink direction from the obstruction scanner

You can hit “Try again” to scan a different location. The direction in which your Starlink will face will not change based on obstructions (like trees) or by scanning in a different area on your property. I recommend scanning various locations until you find a place free of red shaded areas on the obstruction map.

I have a full guide on Starlink obstructions if you need more help finding a suitable mounting location.

Starlink vs Traditional Satellite Dishes

Other satellite communication services, such as Viasat or Dish Network, require a line-of-sight to their satellites, which are in geosynchronous orbit over the equator. Relative to the earth, the satellites are stationary, they don’t move across the sky.

Starlink is completely different. The constellation is made up of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit. They constantly move across the sky. Starlink dishes have a very wide field of view (110 degrees) and phased array antennas that can electronically steer the satellite signal. In simple terms, they don’t need to be pointed in any specific direction. The satellites cover much of the sky, so it isn’t necessary to aim the dish in a specific direction.

Starlink does attempt to load balance their network. That’s why there is a general direction in which Starlink will have you aim your dish. It depends on your location on Earth. For example, those of us living above the equator will typically have our Starlink’s pointing north. South of the equator, dishes will usually point more south.

Properly aiming your dish according to Starlink’s instructions is key for optimal performance, but it will still connect and work even if you point it the wrong way.

Aiming a Starlink Dish

Starlink has actuated and non-actuated Starlink dishes. The actuated versions have motors that automatically aim the dish to the proper area of the sky based on your location on Earth. If you have an actuated dish, you do not need to aim the dish manually.

Starlink Gen 2 Standard Actuated dish
Actuated Starlink Dish (Gen 2)

Newer Starlink dishes are not actuated and must be manually aimed. Alignment is done during the initial setup of the dish. You use the Starlink app to rotate the direction of the dish until it’s pointing in the right direction. Check out my Starlink Alignment Tutorial for full instructions.

Starlink Gen 3 aiming
Aiming the Gen 3 Standard Starlink Dish

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to aim my Starlink Roam dish?

If you use Starlink Roam, aiming and the direction your Starlink faces isn’t as important. For example, if you’ve mounted a dish to your van roof, it’s not practical to aim Starlink in any specific direction.

Starlink dishes have a wide field of view and can see most of the sky, regardless of which direction they are facing. For Roam users the most important thing is finding a clearing without trees. If you are able to align the dish per the Starlink app, that’s a bonus.

Will I ever have to realign or move the dish?

With actuated Starlink’s, any realignment is automatic. Starlink does adjust dish directions for certain areas for load balancing purposes. For newer non-actuated dishes, like the Gen 3 Standard, you shouldn’t have to adjust the alignment after the initial setup process. I’ve had my Standard dish installed for over a year, and haven’t had to adjust anything.

Does Starlink always want to face north?

No, it depends entirely on location. In the Northern Hemisphere, most Starlink’s will face north northwest or north northeast. In the Southern Hemisphere, they tend to face south.

The direction Starlink faces has a lot to do with other satellite systems. Starlink can’t interfere with satellites in the Clarke Belt, so generally the dish will never be aimed toward the equator. If you see a blank line in your Starlink obstruction map, that’s why.

Summary

Most Starlink dishes in the Northern Hemisphere will face north, but the optimal direction for your Starlink depends on your location. I recommend following the instructions in the Starlink app obstruction tool to determine which direction Starlink dishes face in your area.

Customers with older, actuated Starlink’s will find that their dishes automatically align, while newer Starlink models require manual aiming during the initial installation process.

If you have questions and need additional help, feel free to leave me a comment below.

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53 Comments

  1. Great insights on dish placement! I didn’t realize how important the directional alignment is for optimizing the signal. Thanks for breaking down the factors to consider!

  2. Hi Colby, I have a clear shot of the sky facing southwest through northwest, but not in other directions. It is clear from the horizon up to about 70 to 80 degrees with tree branches overhead at 90 degrees. How can I tell if this positioning will work for Starlink?

    1. Download the Starlink app and use the obstruction checker tool to scan the sky in the area you want to mount Starlink. It will give you a pretty good idea about the performance you could expect.

  3. Hello. Does anyone know the antennas sensitivity to lightning? I have a lightning rod on a neighboring building perhaps 20 to 30 m away (straight line), and I wonder if the field strength during a lightning hit would be sufficient to damage the electronics of the aerial or the router. Thanks!

  4. Hello Noah,

    Is there a way to retrieve the current orientation information from the router – as in the current elevation and azimuth of the antenna?

    I would also like to thank you for such a thorough collection of information and tutorials regarding Starlink. This site has been a priceless resource leading to my successful install of my recently received residential kit after a ~15 month wait on the list.

    I am in a NC suburban location and used the standard Proxicast 18″ SS J-Mount with Starlink antenna adapter attached at the roof peak. I have many trees behind my home but a clear window north in front. I chose the mounting site such that there is a clear path between 315 and 45 degree magnetic bearing and register ZERO obstructions after the ~8 hour test. My antenna orients itself ~25-35 degree bearing but I think moves throughout the day.

    I finished my preliminary (for testing) install yesterday and have 88-225Mb downstream speeds! Most average ~140Mb, variable depending on the time of day.

    1. Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate the kind words! Yes, there is alignment data available in the Starlink app. Open the app, scroll down to the very bottom, hit Advanced. Then hit Debug Data. You’ll find the information you need under the Alignment section.

  5. I just order the business edition of starllnk which is the Flat High Performance dish. It does not have a motor on it. So if I live in the Mid-West would North still need to be the correct place. Just checking if anyone has used the Flat.

    1. Generally in the Midwest it would point north. The Flat High Performance dish is mounted at a very slight angle, so I would recommend aligning it to face north if you can. But the field of view of that antenna is 140 degrees, so it won’t matter much which direction the slight angle faces.

  6. I’m in a remote area of Montana near the borders of Wyoming & Idaho with lots of trees & mountains. I originally had my dish on the ground out near the road with a fairly clear shot to the north but obstructions to the east. It oriented itself to about a 45 degree tilt and pointing Northeast & I was getting an outage every 6 minutes. Decided to put in a tree, slightly away from the road, hoping the extra elevation would help. It oriented itself again to the northeast at about the same tilt and now I’m getting outages every 2 minutes, and 52 minutes for every 12 hours, LOL.

    My neighbor (100 yards away) also put his dish in a tree, and it oriented itself straight up and shows “NO” obstructions and no outages!

    So my question is: “why doesn’t my dish orient itself straight up like my neighbor’s dish?”

    1. The dish doesn’t aim to point away from obstructions, the dish will always point to the area of the sky where it is allowed to communicate with the most satellites. Starlink controls which satellites each users dish is allowed to talk to. It doesn’t take into account things like trees or other obstructions when aiming. It’s the responsibility of the customer to install the dish in a place where it can point where it needs to, without being obstructed. In fact, when your dish first aims, it doesn’t even know where the obstructions are. It collects the information over the course of 12 hours. It won’t move again to avoid them, because it’s already pointing to the area of the sky where it needs to in order to talk to the satellites that it is allowed to talk to.

      Pointing it straight up wouldn’t help. You aren’t gaining any more satellites, because in North America, you aren’t even allowed to use most of the satellites to the south. It’s also odd that your neighbors dish would point straight up, that indicates a problem more than anything else, unless they have purposely disabled the motors (which I’ve also tried, I have a tutorial on that).

      1. Thanks Noah, so what I’m getting from your reply is that perhaps my neighbor’s dish is talking to a different set of satellites than mine in order to spread/share the bandwidth load?

        And no matter where/how I mount my dish, it’s going to want to orient to the Northeast at about 45 degrees tilt, because that’s the particular group of satellites it’s been assigned to track?

        1. Right, at least the last part. I’m not sure about your neighbors, since generally anyone within the same service cell would use the same area of the sky. I haven’t heard of anyones dish pointing straight it, that usually indicates bad hardware.

          1. Just chiming in because I ran across this troubleshooting our issue which sounds exactly like the original posters. I, too, am I’m in the rural west, Wyoming, and ha e had no issues for the year and half we’ve had Starlink until now. Due to the sudden dish rotation (and now obstructiona)our connection is lost almost every 2 minutes. Would your recommend be to remount elsewhere?

          2. The dish should always be mounted at the roof peak when possible, with as clear of a view as you can get in all directions. If the dish moved and you are now getting obstructions, moving it is the only solution.

  7. Thinking of Starlink purchase. Downloaded the app got on roof and have found a few locations that state “this is a “”decent”” location.
    2 questions:
    1. Am I to consider “decent” the same as “good” “great” as others have mentioned?
    2. When I go back to these locations and retest I then get a suggestion to look for another location?? Is this due to operator error (me) not using camera function in same manner etc on first sky scan ?
    3. One more. Do I hold camera straight up, go in circles and gradually come down to horizon going in circles. OR start at top come down to horizon in short circular movements covering all sky ?!
    Thanks much
    David

  8. Hi, I understand that Starlink will be available in South American in 2023/24 timeframe. I was looking at a property which is in a hollow surrounded by 5k foot ridges. The dish can look straight up but what are the lower limitations for visibility? Roughly the location is 0.36001, -78.53513. How much clearance/radius does Starlink need to obtain a clear view of the sky?

    1. It has about 100 degrees of visibility. You can get a good idea of what obstructions you could expect by downloading the Starlink app, and using the camera scan tool to look for potential issues at the installation location.

  9. As I use the app to scan the horizon a number of trees are seen in the area highlighted (West Virginia mountains). But they are all pretty low in the horizon and the app concludes “This would be a great location”… Is this conclusion accurate? I’m waitlisted and debating whether to get it now or wait.
    Thx

    1. If the app says it’s good, that’s all you need. Where it points varies by location, so only the app can tell you if it would be a good spot. As long as you did the scan from around the same place your dish would be, it will be fine.

    2. I used the app several years ago… I have trees all around me but the app said I had enough view of the sky so I bought it. I had the unit for a month with it loosing signal every 42 seconds. I discontinued my service.

      1. Did the trees grow in the “several years”? Mine was barely clear a year ago, and now they’ve grown to be a slight interference. I need to get my trees cut/trimmed.. It will probably be OK in the winter though, so I may wait..

  10. I have tall treed everywhere around house except for east to north east. Why doesn’t dish point that way instead of north where it gets obstructed views daily

    1. Starlink is restricted on what areas of the sky they are allowed to send and receive signals from the user terminals. They point where they are allowed to point, and where it’s best optimized for network performance.

      1. Not sure what is doing that ‘restriction’? with the satellites going in all directions all over the place, it seems moving a few degrees one way or another to satisfy a local need shouldn’t be a big deal. Certainly there’s no rule/law regarding that, right? Where are you seeing a “restriction”?

        1. The FCC strictly regulates the satellites and their communication with devices on the ground. The main restriction is existing geosynchronous systems like DirecTV. Starlink satellites can’t interfere with their operation, so user terminals aren’t allowed to send data to Starlink sats in certain bands of the sky. In North America, this is usually south.

          It’s a phased array antenna that is electronically controlled. Manually aiming it doesn’t gain you anything, because Starlink remotely controls which satellites and what areas of the sky your specific dish can communicate with. It always points in the best direction for your location based on available satellites, not obstructions.

  11. Got my rectangle Starlink. We live in the tall trees of the Northern Ca forest, we are literally sounded by 150 foot tall trees.
    The location finder app will not recommend any place on our property to install the dish, including our roof top. However, I do not what to install it of our roof. We get lots of snow which would cover a standard mount height.
    We areas in front of our house that do have the best views of the northern sky so I placed the unit on the ground, turned it on and it works perfectly.
    I purchased an 8 foot long 2-3/8 diameter galvanized steel pole and fabricated a base plate which will lag bolt onto a large level cut tree stump. I have a heavy copper wire that I will use to ground the set up which is recommended. I order the straight pole adapter so the unit will slide and lock over the pole which properly snaps on to the unit without touching the wire connection. I use zip ties to secure the wire with a drip loop.
    I then installed a stainless steel vinyl coated guy-wire from the the top of the pole to under the eves of my house to which I wrap the unit’s cable for an over head connection.
    So, it’s basically 10 feet off the ground where I can reach it without climbing on the roof. I am getting fult signal strength.
    I can now get rid of my TV and Satellite internet as well as my land line telephone.
    This saves me over $200 a month and increases my communications quality 10 fold.

    1. Dan, I am in BC Canada low mountains area and also have trees around most of the property except to the NW and N but because the tallest trees and our 2 story house ring the NE, E,S & W the app picks up a thin low fringe of “obstructions” on the bottom of the dome in those directions. I want to install in front of house in pretty much exactly the same setting as you have so no roof climbing ever, but app says not good enough. I will ignore the app and work with the dish unit as you did. Thanks for giving me hope. Any other input?

  12. Hello I just installed a Starlink residential dish at 38.7 degrees N, 123 degrees West. I installed it on an existing mast on the roof, which has the clearest view of the sky to the N and E. I was expecting the dish to point N based on various comments here, but to my surprise it is pointing W where it has some interference from trees along the lowest elevation to the W. Is there some way to give the system a hint that there is a better unobstructed view available to the N?

    1. Starlink has been playing around with adjusting coastal customers to point more towards the oceans. There is no way to manually adjust where it points, it’s up to Starlink. I’ve added some more detail to the article to warn people about changing directions over time. It’s best to install Starlink at the highest point of your roof, with as clear of a view in all directions as possible.

  13. We just ordered our rv set up for home use. Our direct tv has traditional mount on side of electric pole, can we mount on side of pole the same way or would the pole be an obstruction? Is 360 clearance needed?

  14. In the past year we have traveled from FL to CA to MT to TN and now we are back in FL. At every spot dishy has pointed north. Now that we are back in FL (Palm Beaches) dishy has been pointing almost exactly NE in 3 different spots in the last 30 days.

    1. Recent firmware versions have pointed some dishes slightly different directions. As the satellite constellation fills out, some directions may be more optimal than others based on where you live. Coastal areas should expect to point more towards the ocean, to utilize the uncongested satellites orbiting there.

  15. My Starlink is mounted with the long wall mount. It clears my eaves, but just barely, after it self adjusted to the satellites the top of the star link is only about a 1/4-inch from contacting my roof line. Should I work on getting a bigger space between start link and roofline? Or now that it is aligned with the satellites it’ll be stationary?

    1. It will be stationary but occasionally Starlink can point the antenna’s in a different direction. If it doesn’t have full range of motion, it probably needs to be modified so that you don’t damage the motors if it happens to try to move and gets stuck on the roof. I wouldn’t say it’s a huge priority issue, but I would certainly recommend coming up with some kind of extension or alternate mounting solution, and taking care of it when you get a chance.

  16. I just got my residential Starlink set up at 64degN latitude in Alaska on a lot with a lot of tree obstructions. I set it up on a pole from the top north end of our three story house so it would be near the treetop level and have the most clear sky view to the south, since I figured the majority of the satellites launched so far are in lower inclination orbits than 64 degrees and therefore the dish would want to point south. Now I read in the comments that the dish must point north by law to prevent interference with equatorial orbit satellites (guessing geosync or geostat orbits). Does this still apply to places this far north? The dish does seem to spend most of the time pointing about 45 degrees off the vertical toward the north away from the open sky and right toward the most obstructed direction. However the visibility view in the app shows the compass directions reversed relative to the obstructions and shows the dish pointing south. Does the visibility direction in the app matter and can I calibrate it? It only says obstructions every 4 minutes, but it cuts out for minutes at a time and is almost unusable. Will there be more near-polar orbit satellites launched soon for better service to high latitudes?

    1. I don’t think there is anyway to calibrate the compass view in the app. The only suggestion I have is to stow the dish, reboot the system, and then unstow. It will reorient itself in its preferred direction. Since it aligns itself, you’ll have to clear obstructions wherever it wants to point.

    2. I am up in the interior and was noticing the dish facing north and the app was reporting that it was facing south. A friend in Talkeetna said the same was happening to him so i am guessing it was a network issue. It has since then been resolved. Noah, do you know if they are going to be moving more satellites over Alaska? During the transition to the next set of sats it always cuts out. We need better coverage.

    3. I live in Norway and I have the same problem, I have been using starlink since October and until last week the antenna was set to south, short interruptions in internet access were about 10-20 times a day. A week ago starlink stated that I am in Egypt 🙂 … I wrote a support ticket and a day later the antenna turned north and then the breaks began (breaks last from a few seconds to several dozen minutes) in Internet access every 1-4 minutes non-stop. Visibility for the antenna towards the south is 100% towards the north 95% (in the application the antenna is directed mainly to the south despite the visibility indicating north) the antenna is on the roof and the nearest growing trees are no closer than 20m from the house. I don’t see how this could interfere with the merger. I checked the “https://satellitemap.space/?constellation=starlink” and saw that I live far north of the farthest satellites and yet the antenna points north. No one from the support responded to the ticket.

  17. You say the dish points north, but that seems ridiculous. Every satellite is either directly above me, or to the south. The dish natural position would be towards the equator, where the most satellites will be in sight, surely. Am I misunderstanding you?

    1. Satellites cover virtually the entire view of the sky. Starlink is limited by law in terms of which direction it can point the antennas. They currently can’t transmit towards the south to the equater because of interference with other satellite constellations. This could change in the future, and Starlink could point towards more of the sky. It depends on location, but most in the northern hemisphere will see their antennas pointing slightly north.

      Also, the dish doesn’t have to point directly at the satellites. It is a phased array antenna. It has about a 100 degree field of view where it can actively track satellites as they fly across the sky. The dish doesn’t physically move to track satellites, it’s done with the phased array technology.

  18. Does the starlink dish move to any position to pick up the best view from the sky.
    I mounted it with the long extension to siding and it adjusted North following the roof line.
    I was thinking it would go facing away from the house but that would be south facing.

      1. The way I interpret your reply is that; 100 degrees from vertical would need an unobstructed view of 10 degrees below the horizon. (In all directions). This is physically impossible!

  19. My Starlink is in the backwoods with 400 trees on our property
    Against all advice including the app I set up using a 16 ft post
    The obstruction readings are all doom and gloom with interruptions every 24 seconds
    But Alas ! The system works just fine I get some slowdown from time to time but it still blows away the 4 MB we get from TDS
    I see speeds from 25 to 130 MB
    I have yet to see any service interruptions
    I think that the obstruction warnings are way overblown

    1. It depends on what you are doing with the internet. Streaming TV or browsing the web? You probably won’t notice, as a constant uninterrupted data stream isn’t necessary. With streaming, you get a bit of a buffer, so a few seconds of obstructions every once and awhile isn’t going to cause too many problems.

      Now, if you do Zoom calls or online gaming, where obstructions can cause packet loss and interruptions, it would be a major headache during obstructions where your internet is momentarily cut off.

    2. Thanks Tony, this eases my mind as I’m about to set up my dish in what sounds like a similar spot to yours. We have almost no other choices, the cell boosting antenna barely gives us any service at all so we’re really counting on the Starlink to connect our off-grid cabin.

  20. my Starlink is a beta. It points nnw 330 degrees the are tall trees to the west. So I get some obstruction but still get 250 down. No buffering when streaming 4k. My problem is dropped calls from obstruction. My Nextdoor neighbor just got an rv system and it points 27 degrees and no obstruction. Rv systems must use different satellites.

    1. Try unplugging the dish, leaving it for a few minutes, and plugging back in. It should point straight up for awhile to look for satellites, then move itself to it’s final position.

  21. I ordered a RV Starlink dish, only 5 days I got it ,then installed it on top of my home, took about 2 hrs done.
    I have internet with 50 mbps to 120 mbps ( on the cloudy time, speed drops). Happy with it since I live in nowhere in small town in Texas.

    1. Hello. Quick question. Where you live in Texas is it on Starlink’s Map of wailisted areas. I am on the same boat in NC, and wondering if i purchase the RV option if it will work on waitlisted areas.

      1. Starlink RV will work in waitlisted areas. However, traffic is deprioritized. Meaning, in peak usage hours, you may experience very slow speeds as all the Residential users in the area have bandwidth priority.