Thanks for the replies guys. I finally nailed it last night, so I was going to write a follow-up here in any case......
What I discovered last night, more by luck than anything else, is that when in the main alignment section of the menu it'll say "In progress..." until hell freezes over.
But, in the
scanning part of the menu it
will get past "In progress".....
eventually. Sometimes this can take several minutes, well after the motor has actually moved. Yet on a few satellites it was relatively quick to start scanning once the motor had moved to the right position.
So I'm not quite sure what its criterion is. Even if I get it to look where there isn't a signal, it'll still get past "In progress" if I leave it for long enough (and then report "No signal", as expected).
So my next step will be to fine tune the alignment so that it tracks the full arc correctly, but that'll have to wait until my wife's away. I'm already in trouble for spending too much time mucking around with it last weekend.
Colin