[wejones]

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

You are not "fine tuning" the sat. You are attempting to compensate for a misadjusted dish.

I know that we have different opinions on the best way to align TVRO mounts, but if he is able to get good reception by only by running the motor back and forth (and there is nothing wrong with using the "fine tuning" term for what he did), that is not an indication that his dish is not tracking the arc. If he can get to it by running the motor, it is showing that he IS tracking the arc. It sounds more like he is just out of sync a bit, or that the USALS just isn't going to exactly the right position for one reason or another. But I certainly wouldn't start messing with alignment unless the only way you get improvement is by push/pulling the dish out of the arc, which is NOT what his symptoms reflect. Anyway, I think that when someone is tracking the arc as far as the existing evidence suggests, that it's not a good idea to start messing with the alignment.

BTW, I'm curious what you are referring to when you say "push up and pull down", because this can do very different things, depending on what you define as up and down.
When a dish is pointed south, there is no confusion relative to what "up" means, but when the dish is motored far to the east or west, up can mean a few different things,depending on where the free play is in your system, and depending on whether you are lifting the motor axis inclination, the dish elevation (ie the declination), or are just lifting straight up from the lowest edge of the dish, which will tend to follow the arc to some extent. The way you do the pushing and pulling, ie where you are applying the pressure, and which direction you push or pull make a big difference with respect to how you interpret the results.