will this work in a sliding door? because i cant drill any holes into the house from outside.
Actually you should set the motor to true south and not the dish, then using the receiver, you drive/move the dish to the true south satellite.
Unless you live directly on a longitude line where a satellite is parked, your true south satellite is not EXACTLY at due south. The motor should point at due south when at the '0' position, regardless of whether or not there's a satellite there. For example, my true south satellite is parked at 91w (Galaxy 11). I'm located at 90.1w, so .9 off from my true south satellite. What you want to do is to use USALS to move the dish to where your true south satellite should be (it will only move a degree or so in my case), then tweak the dish after moving the motor. For azimuth, you tweak the entire motor/dish assembly on the pole, not just the dish.
so do i set the motor and dish to 180 degrees on the compass or 175.6 degrees on the compass (magnetic azimuth for 97w at my location)
Personally, I don't use a compass to align my dishes. I just make sure the motor is at '0', then use USALS to command the motor to go to a satellite that is close to due south of me. After the dish moves, I dial in a strong transponder, and SLOWLY move the entire dish/motor assembly east-west until I pick up quality. This will sometimes involve tweaking the dish (NOT motor) elevation, since dish elevation markings are notoriously off by a few degrees. Once you set the motor to your latitude on the scale, lock it down and leave it there.
<threadjack> Sorry to threadjack but I'm going through the same thing at the moment. I'm going to attempt to set up my motor tonight. My true south sat is 89W @ 178.4°, or 1.6° off of true south. My thinking is that I will set the motor to 0, get a good lock on 89W and then move the motor 1.6° using the receiver. Then I will rotate the motor on the mast until I get a lock on 89W again. By my thinking, that would put 0 on the motor at exactly 180°. Does that sound right to anyone else? Or is there a huge hole in my logic?
Also, according to the calculator @ Sadoun this is my setup data:
Motor Latitude Angle: 35.1°
Azimuth (true): 180.0°
Azimuth (magn.): 180.8° using Compass
Declination angle: 5.7°
Dish elevation: 29°
Does this mean that the elevation on the motor mount needs to be 35.1° and that the dish needs to be set at 29° and that's all that needs to be done as far as the elevation is concerned? That's what it looks like to me, but I tend to make bigger problems out of small issues.
Once again, sorry to take over your thread for a moment...
</threadjack>
no need to to be sorry spiffwilkie any response to your questions will help me also
About the dish elevation being off by a few degrees. How many is a few?
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