Repurpose Starlink Cable as Ethernet

I was doing some testing on the new Dishy Cable at my house. Once testing was done, I was left with a Starlink cable that I didn’t feel like fishing back through conduit, so I decided to rewire it. I knew that it was actually an Ethernet cable with special ends. What I was not aware of is that it also uses a different color code. After I cut the cable, I realized the pairs on the RJ45 on the Dishy side were laid out different. My first attempt failed a wire map.

I wrote down the color code I had initially used, then asked ChatGPT for the pin color pinout. That got me closer. A couple of reversed pins later I had a pinout I could land on an RJ45 wall jack.

I kept the RJ45 on the Dishy side and plugged it into an outdoor AP. The cable is built well. It looks like CAT5 since it’s missing the plastic insert that CAT6 has, but it’s outdoor rated and for my use case it worked. The cable tested at 1 Gig.

On shorter runs the color doesn’t matter a whole lot at the ends. Another option for Gen2 Dishy is a conversion adapter so you can run it over existing CAT6. I make no claim that it will work for you, but it has saved me quite a bit of time.