Thread: Dish tuning
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Old 06-22-2007, 12:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mreaves53 View Post
[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/mreaves/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg[/IMG]Is there a software program or a web site that I can input my latitude and longitude get the all the angles I need?

Thanks,
What angles are you looking for? There are lots of programs and web pages out there that will give you Az/El angles to various satellites, that are useful if you are setting up a fixed dish, ie not a motorized polar mount.
If you want angles to help you with a motorized system, basically all you need is the declination of your south sat, and of a sat near your eastern or western horizon. Most calculators (including Sadoun's) only give you the southern declination. You can get the proper "MODIFIED" declination off the chart at http://www.geo-orbit.org/sizepgs/decchartp.html
, or you can use a calculator I made at:

http://wejones.ftdata.com/bjdishcalc2.htm

With this calculator and your latitude, you set the latitude to your latitude plus the difference between south and extreme declinations, and set your declination to the extreme declination. That's all you need. With a big dish, where you can set the declination accurately, set that and leave it alone, and peak using motor elevation. With an offset dish, where it isn't as easy to set declination accurately, set your motor elevation, and peak using declination (dish elevation). You don't need any other angles.


EDIT: Also, if you feel adventuresome, you might try my TVCALC. It is NOT user friendly, has a few bugs, but gives a lot of interesting info.
http://www.megalink.net/%7Ewejones/tvcalc2k.zip
If you try this, you should download, a recent geosync kep file from:
http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/geo.txt , and edit this file to only have the sats you are interested in, because my program has a relatively small size limit for the number of sats (not sure what it is, maybe around 100 sats). After editing, rename it tvro.tle . I haven't had the time to completely debug the program, but some people find it useful.
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Last edited by wejones : 06-22-2007 at 02:26 PM.
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