A camping weekend with a Starlink Mini
By Roaming Dish Editors. Updated October 18, 2026. How we work these numbers out
For a two-night trip, the question is how many hours a day you keep the dish on. Switch it off overnight and a mid-size station covers a weekend with room to spare.
768 Wh × 90% usable × 90% for USB-C ÷ 28 W = about 22 hours of browsing and music. The dish's draw is from its spec sheet. The two percentages are our estimates.
How long it runs
| Setup | Hours per full charge |
|---|---|
| 768 Wh station, typical use Mini at 28 W (browsing and music), USB-C | 22 h |
| 768 Wh station, light use Mini at 21 W (email and maps), USB-C | 30 h |
| 288 Wh station, typical use Mini at 28 W (browsing and music), USB-C | 8 h |
| 1,070 Wh station, typical use Mini at 28 W (browsing and music), USB-C | 31 h |
Usable capacity taken as 90% of the rating. Connection losses are our estimates. Try your own battery.
Work it out by hours on
Count the hours you want the dish on each day, not the days of the trip. Four hours each evening for two nights is eight hours, which even a small station covers. Leaving it on around the clock for the whole weekend needs a large one.
Every boot pulls over 40 W for a minute or two while the dish finds satellites, so switching it off between uses still saves energy as long as the gaps are longer than a few minutes.
Setting it up at camp
The Mini comes with a kickstand and weighs 1.10 kg with it, 1.16 kg with the kickstand and 1.53 kg with the 15 m cable. Its field of view is 110 degrees, so trees overhead cost more signal than trees off to the side. Mini spec sheet
Starlink's Mini travel kit adds a bumper case, a sleeve and an accessory pouch. Mini accessories guide
Plan
Roam 100GB at $55 a month suits occasional trips, and you can pause between them with Standby Mode. Checked October 18, 2026. Starlink Roam page
Recharging between days
Most stations recharge from a car's 12 V socket while you drive, slowly but for free. If the drive home from a trailhead is a couple of hours, that is part of tomorrow's battery back.
Solar panels help on longer stays. How much they add depends on the panel, the weather and the season, so we do not put a number on it. Treat solar as a top-up and size the station as if the sky stays gray.
What to pack
Bring the 100 W USB-C cable rather than the mains power supply if the station has the right port. It skips the inverter and the bulky brick. Starlink's own USB-C cable for the Mini is 5 m long and needs a 100 W source. Mini accessories guide
Pack the kickstand. Finding a clear patch of sky is easier with a dish you can move twenty meters from the tent than with one fixed to the car.