- 01
Run a full obstruction scan.Open the Starlink app → tap the dish icon → "Check for obstructions." Hold your phone where the dish is mounted and slowly rotate 360° for 2 minutes. The app builds a heatmap of blocked sky areas.
- 02
Identify the direction of the obstruction.The heatmap shows orange/red zones where signal is blocked. For Northern Hemisphere users, obstructions to the north are less critical — obstructions to the south and directly overhead cause the most outage minutes.
- 03
Raise the dish height.Every additional foot of height adds approximately 10–15 feet of horizontal clearance from ground-level obstructions. A roof mount, chimney mount, or J-pole extension is the fastest way to clear trees and fence lines.
- 04
Reposition horizontally.If raising is not an option, move the dish laterally — even 6–10 feet in the right direction can shift a tree or roofline out of the dish's field of view. Re-run the obstruction scan after each repositioning.
- 05
Check for seasonal changes.Tree foliage that did not exist in winter can create obstructions in summer. Re-run obstruction scans in spring and fall to catch new blockages before they cause significant downtime spikes.