I needed to locate the correct Azimuth setting for my WaveFrontier Toroidal dish and I found this the be the best way. Aligning one of these so it can track properly can be a bear and I had it almost perfect the first time.
First I made sure my pole was plumb. Then I set the skew to 0 degrees and checked it with my level.
The
T90 has 2 small holes drilled into the bottom of the main and subreflector. They seem to be exactly located at the midpoints. They are perfect to use for alignment. I hung a plumb weight on a line from both holes.
Next, knowing what my desired Azimuth was from the calculation given me by Wavefrontier (must be registered) I went to the US Naval observatory site:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.html
I entered the current day, date and my location and asked for a solar chart with 1 minute intervals. I checked the chart for the time of day when the sun was closest to my desired azimuth. I then synchronized my watch to "atomic" wall clock.
Before the calculated time, I took a plain white card with me to the dish, and did a rough alignment. The dish is pointed at the sun when the shadows of the two plumb lines coincide on the card. When the exact time came, I double checked the alignment and tightened down the dish.
The rest was simple. I set my elevation and skew according to the calculations provided by WaveFrontier and I was nearly perfectly tracking the sats.
I'm planning on doing a motorized dish at some point, and I'll try to figure out how to use the sun to align that too I imagine.