Obstructions cause more Starlink frustration than weather, congestion, or hardware put together, and the Starlink app can only scan your sky once you already own the dish. This estimator lets you check a spot first. You describe what’s around it — or point your phone at the treetops — and it maps which part of the sky the dish needs and how much of it your trees, roof, or barn would cover. We modeled the geometry ourselves, and the table further down shows something most people get wrong: the height that matters depends heavily on which side of the dish an obstacle sits.
Key Answers About Starlink Obstructions
Seven things to know before you pick a spot, drill a hole, or pay someone to trim a tree.
In the continental U.S., the dish tilts toward the north and uses a cone of sky roughly 100 degrees wide. That cone reaches down to about 25 degrees above the northern horizon, sweeps overhead, and only dips to about 65 degrees on the south side. So a 50-foot oak due north of the dish is a real problem, while the same tree due south is usually harmless.
Under 5% blocked is excellent. From 5% to 15%, most people notice short freezes on video calls or in games a few times an hour but can stream and browse normally. Above 15%, interruptions come often enough to be genuinely frustrating. The estimator uses the same bands, so its result lines up with what the Starlink app reports after installation.
It depends on distance and direction. We worked it out for a dish mounted 10 feet up: a tree 40 feet to the north can be about 29 feet tall before it pokes into the needed sky, but a tree 40 feet to the south can be around 96 feet. The full table is below. The quick rule for the north side: an obstacle matters once it rises above the dish by more than about half its distance away.
Usually more than anything else you can do. Raising the dish lowers the angle to every obstacle around it. Moving a dish from a ground stand to a one-story roofline often cuts obstruction dramatically on a wooded lot. The estimator’s “mount height to get under 5%” figure tests every height from your current setting up to 60 feet and reports the first one that works.
Yes. Bare winter branches let more signal through than a full summer canopy, which is why a spot that tested fine in February can start dropping in May. If deciduous trees are nearby, plan for the leafed-out version — the estimator treats trees as solid for that reason.
On most phones, yes. Tap “Turn on phone sensors,” hold the phone upright, and point it at the top of the tree or roof; the compass supplies the direction and the tilt supplies the angle. That skips measuring height and distance entirely. Phone compasses can be thrown off by nearby metal and vehicles, so stand a few feet from cars and metal siding for the best reading.
After you have the hardware, yes — the app’s camera scan measures your actual sky, and the dish keeps building a real obstruction map as it runs. This estimator is for the decision before that: choosing between the backyard and the roof, deciding whether a pole mount is worth buying, or finding out whether a heavily wooded lot can work at all.
Obstruction Estimator
Add the trees, buildings, and poles around the spot where you’d put the dish. The 3D view shows your yard, and the sky map shows the same view the Starlink app uses — straight up in the middle, the horizon around the edge, north at the top. Red dots are sky the dish needs but can’t see.
Stand where the dish will go. Hold your phone upright, point the back of it at the top of the tree or roofline, then tap Capture. Works on most phones; desktop computers don’t have the sensors.
This is a planning model: it assumes a north-facing dish using a 100-degree cone of sky with a 25-degree minimum elevation, and treats trees as solid. Leafless winter branches block less; summer foliage blocks more. After installing, confirm with the obstruction scan in the Starlink app.
How Tall an Obstacle Can Be Before It Blocks the Dish
Our model’s results for a dish mounted 10 feet above the ground. Anything shorter than these heights stays below the sky the dish uses. Add the extra height if your dish sits higher.
| Direction from the dish | Lowest sky angle used | 20 ft away | 40 ft away | 60 ft away | 100 ft away |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North (dish faces this way) | 25° | 19 ft | 29 ft | 38 ft | 57 ft |
| Northeast / Northwest | 25° | 19 ft | 29 ft | 38 ft | 57 ft |
| East / West | ~45° | 30 ft | 50 ft | 70 ft | 111 ft |
| Southeast / Southwest | ~61° | 45 ft | 81 ft | 116 ft | 187 ft |
| South | ~65° | 53 ft | 96 ft | 139 ft | 224 ft |
Find Your Situation
This is the classic Starlink problem, and it’s the one where mount height pays off most. Enter the trees in the estimator and watch the “mount height to get under 5%” figure. If it lands at roof height, a roof mount near the peak on the north side of the roof is usually enough. If it says 30 feet or more, look for a clearing elsewhere on the property and run a longer cable instead.
Trimming helps only if you can remove the tops, not just the lower limbs — the dish looks up, not across.
A chimney close to the dish can block more sky than a big tree farther away, because angle is what matters. Add it as a “pole or chimney” a few feet away and compare spots on either side of it. Mounting the dish south of the chimney keeps the chimney out of the northern sky the dish relies on most.
Try the ground first. The included kickstand on a flat patch of yard or a heavy non-penetrating base on a flat roof or deck avoids holes entirely. Set the dish height to 1–2 feet in the estimator and add your obstacles; in open areas, ground level often works fine. Ask your landlord in writing before any permanent mount.
Add the ridge as a “hill or ridge” with its rough distance and how far it rises above your home. A ridge to the north that rises more than about 25 degrees above your horizon will cut into the sky the dish needs no matter how high you mount it, because the dish only gains a few feet against a hillside hundreds of feet tall. If the estimator shows heavy blocking from terrain, the fix is location, not height — a spot farther from the ridge or higher up the slope.
Leaves filled in. Rerun the estimator with the trees at their summer size, then decide between trimming, raising the dish, or relocating before next season. If drops cluster at the same times each day, that’s typically the satellite path crossing the leafy side of the sky.
Where to Check Prices, Coverage, or Get Help
Keep planning with our other Starlink tools, built around the same data.
The estimator models a north-tilted dish using a 100-degree cone of sky with a 25-degree minimum elevation, based on Starlink’s published field-of-view guidance; SpaceX has since received FCC approval to use lower elevation angles for some satellites, so this model is intentionally conservative. Trees are treated as solid tapered shapes. Results are planning estimates, not a substitute for the Starlink app’s obstruction scan. This page is independent and not affiliated with SpaceX or Starlink. Key sources: Starlink support documentation; FCC filings.