Fixed alignment for 40.5

[elgemcdlf]

I currently am attempting to align a dish to 40.5. My location is 38.8, 87.4. I have the mount centered and roughly pointed at 120 azimuth. My problem comes in with what do I set elevation at? My normal elevation for my location? Also is declination/dish elevation angle. I have yet to find anything above 20% for signal quality. this is a polar mount dish.

BILL!

[wejones]

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

I currently am attempting to align a dish to 40.5. My location is 38.8, 87.4. I have the mount centered and roughly pointed at 120 azimuth. My problem comes in with what do I set elevation at? My normal elevation for my location? Also is declination/dish elevation angle. I have yet to find anything above 20% for signal quality. this is a polar mount dish.

BILL!

If this is a polar mount, then why don't you just set it up normally, and run the motor down to that sat?
I'm not sure what kind of mount you're using, ie is it connected to a motor with a bent shaft, or is this a regular big dish type mount? And is it a prime focus dish (I know you've posted about this, but I forget)?

Basically, I think you're looking for an elevation of around 24.2 or there abouts, but this will have to be the combination of your polar mount's inclination and the dish elevation (assuming you have this), plus if you have it on a motor with a bent shaft, you have to take that into consideration.
If you don't have a bent shaft motor involved, then you might have a problem that the dish elevation and motor inclination won't go low enough. You might be better off taking the dish off the polar mount and just putting it on the pole and set the dish elevation to 24.

But if you're going to do it fixed, I wouldn't worry about measuring any angles, unless it is a prime focus dish, and if it is, I'd just put an inclinometer on the dish itself and tilt the mount until you get 24 deg. If you're not motorizing the thing, you don't have to be concerned with declination or anything.

If it were me though, I'd just turn the thing to 120 true like you did, and lower the thing until you get a signal. But if you're already getting a 20% signal, I guess you've done that? Or aren't you sure you're on the right sat or something?

I think I recall you saying that you had an LNBF that had a teflon slab? If that's the case, even though you're looking at circular polarization, I'd bet that there is a good chance that the orientation of your lnbf will still need to be optimized, although that probably depends on the sat. In theory, if both signal and lnbf were pure CP, this wouldn't be necessary, but I don't think that either the sat signal or the lnbf is likely to be pure CP, although that's just a guess on my part. But it's worth a try I think.

[elgemcdlf]

Originally Posted by wejones

If this is a polar mount, then why don't you just set it up normally, and run the motor down to that sat?
I'm not sure what kind of mount you're using, ie is it connected to a motor with a bent shaft, or is this a regular big dish type mount? And is it a prime focus dish (I know you've posted about this, but I forget)?

Basically, I think you're looking for an elevation of around 24.2 or there abouts, but this will have to be the combination of your polar mount's inclination and the dish elevation (assuming you have this), plus if you have it on a motor with a bent shaft, you have to take that into consideration.
If you don't have a bent shaft motor involved, then you might have a problem that the dish elevation and motor inclination won't go low enough. You might be better off taking the dish off the polar mount and just putting it on the pole and set the dish elevation to 24.

But if you're going to do it fixed, I wouldn't worry about measuring any angles, unless it is a prime focus dish, and if it is, I'd just put an inclinometer on the dish itself and tilt the mount until you get 24 deg. If you're not motorizing the thing, you don't have to be concerned with declination or anything.

If it were me though, I'd just turn the thing to 120 true like you did, and lower the thing until you get a signal. But if you're already getting a 20% signal, I guess you've done that? Or aren't you sure you're on the right sat or something?

I think I recall you saying that you had an LNBF that had a teflon slab? If that's the case, even though you're looking at circular polarization, I'd bet that there is a good chance that the orientation of your lnbf will still need to be optimized, although that probably depends on the sat. In theory, if both signal and lnbf were pure CP, this wouldn't be necessary, but I don't think that either the sat signal or the lnbf is likely to be pure CP, although that's just a guess on my part. But it's worth a try I think.

I initially thought skewing the lnbf would not be required as usage was circular but found rotating in the scalar ring did increase signal. So I hunted for highest signal and left it at this setting. I also set depth in the scalar ring this way.

I am not confident I am on the correct sat but am reasonably certain it is. I am getting signal on some active tp's for that sat. I do believe that perhaps my problem is dropping far enough. I have dish elevation at it's lowest point and declination pulled in to almost 0 also. I have not checked angle on the actual dish itself and will do so tomorrow.

I can lower the dish elevation all the way to 0 or at least pretty close by simply removing the adjustment bar. Should I not be able to achieve 24 in this manner I can build a new adjustment bar. I know so far it has given me fits

As far as driving down to the sat with a normal alignment I can not get that far. Being at 87 and with a 18" actuator simply will not get me down that far. Since it is a fixed install not worth the investment of a 24" actuator and not real sure it could drive down that far then either. Perhaps if the actuator slid all the way in when pointed at 87 it might.

Sounds like a simple keep hunting thing. Thanks

[Star_Voyager]

>>Being at 87 and with a 18" actuator simply will not get me down that far. <<

Can you adjust the arm where the thick end mounts to the dish? I looked at my spare arm (18" cheapy) and the one on my dish and both mine can be adjusted to push further east. Just a thought.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Star_Voyager

>>Being at 87 and with a 18" actuator simply will not get me down that far. <<

Can you adjust the arm where the thick end mounts to the dish? I looked at my spare arm (18" cheapy) and the one on my dish and both mine can be adjusted to push further east. Just a thought.

Well, an 18" actuator should be no problem at all getting there. The thing is though, that you'd have to put it on the east side of the dish instead of the west side of the dish. Doing that, you can get down to the horizon on the east, but you'd give up the western sats. Ie this is the way people on the west coast mount their actuators, because they primarily look at sats to their east. People in the middle of the country are kind of in the middle, they can go either way.
It's not good to extend any actuator, regardless of length, much past your due south sat though, because you might not get it to retract, and it may bind against the side of the dish.

[rainman]

I agree with Bill just put the acuator on the other side should be no problem getting low enough that way.

[elgemcdlf]

Found it. Elevation ended up being 28 degrees. Was starting to think there was a problem with the c band side of the lnbf so I switched to Ku and locked 30 in a matter of moments.From there it was a breeze. I rolled out 10 degrees and switched back to C Band and hit 45. Back a hair and insert the plate and there we were.

I did skew the lnbf and set distance within the scalar ring and presently am getting L and R signals. Ran a blind scan and pulled in 99 channels. Once this project is complete my next adventure will be to set up a steerable linear dish for Atlantic sats. I may in the future hook up the actuator on this one as there are a few more c band circular sats out there.

[rainman]

Great glad to here you got it up and running Steve.