Quote:
Originally Posted by tandemrudy
Regards to the Motorized Dishes.
1. Since there isn't a Up /Down mechanisim to these units , just the up and
down from the ARC. Is there any case where I would need to raise or lower
the elevation in order to recieve certain Satalights?
|
I think what you are asking is that since the motors just move the dish along the arc, is there ever any need to move the dish above or below the arc? This would involve a declination adjustment, not an elevation adjustment (unless you went to an entirely different type of mount, ie an AZ/EL mount).
Well there are some people, mainly with big 10' dishes, who install declination motors, but at this time there isn't really any need for this capability, although that doesn't mean that there might be a need in the future. You only need this capability when the satellite you want to watch is inclined. In the past, there were a few, usually aging satellites, that were allowed to go inclined, which means that while they stay at the same orbital longitude, that they drift a few degrees north and south of the equator each day. If you don't have a declination motor, you can only watch these sats during the periods when they are close to the equator, but with a motor, you can follow them up/down.
Right now, however, I'm not aware of any inclined satellites that have any programming worth viewing. If you look at Lyngsat, it will normally tell you if the satellites are inclined. Right now, the only one listed over the US is G4R, and it is only inclined by about a half degree, which isn't enough to worry about.