What's My Optimum Motorized Dish Elevation?

[Deputy Bates]

Lost signal on my motorized sat system and I'm going on roof to check everything up there. Have an HH motor but not sure if its a HH90 or HH100, did not do original installation. From what I can gather the HH90 motor has a 45 degree shaft angle and the HH100 has a 30 degree. I'll verify which motor I have prior to checking/making adjustments.

However, I noticed on a forum comment here that the Dish Elevation or Declination Angle outputted from the Sat Look Angle Calculator on Sadoun site may be off by about 0.6 degrees. Don't remember if error was high or low, but if true could cause dish to be increasingly misaligned with the Clark Belt the farther east or west you point it from true south. I realize I may not be able to make sub 1 degree adjustments to elevation but may be able to go to high or low side of nearest degree.
Is this calculator off 0.6 degrees?
If so should I subtract or add the error value to the Dish Elevation or Declination Angle?

And I would like to verify another thing. Do I subtract the Declination Angle value indicated on this calculator from the Dish Elevation value indicated to get the correct Dish Elevation setting?

Here's the output from the Sadoun Calculator for HH90 motor pointed true south at my location:

Motor Latitude: 39.9°
Declination Angle: 6.3°
Dish Elevation: 39°

Here's the same for the HH100 motor:

Motor Latitude: 39.9 °
Declination Angle: 6.3°
Dish Elevation: 24°

I guess the bottom line question is, assuming plumb mount and nothing bent, what would be my final optimum Dish Elevation setting for each motor above, taking into account any adjustment for Declination Angle?

Using Fortec 80cm dish, photo of my dish/motor setup attached.

Sorry if this is long winded, my first post and I wanted to be clear. Thank You Very Much

[Vitruvius]

I usually work with the motor manual to determine angle of dish.

First thing, though, if your pole mount is plumb and has been, your problem is probably not the angle of the dish. I have a 36" dish that with strong winds would spin around (just a smidgen) the pole and mis-align the focus off the Clark Belt. I suspect this may be the culprit for you. I suggest you tune your receiver to a strong signalled sat, and slowly rotate your dish until you get signal. This should put you back on the Clark Belt.

Good luck.

[Vitruvius]

Or, another problem you may have.. is lightning. You may have been zapped, which means you may need a new LNB.

[pmb1010]

As said, there is specific formula to calculate the dish angle, based on the motor in use.

I'll just add this - the scale settings on the dish and motor are very "rough".
When you get up there to look at all this, you'll see it's very difficult to be .5 degrees accurate.

The *best* way to align these systems is with a signal level indicator.
The receiver is probably the best way to handle this.
Drag an extension cord, receiver, a small TV up to the roof.

It's your best tool. The numbers get you close, once you find the signal tweaking the settings gets you dialed in.
Use a satellite around your longitude (highest in the sky) for best results.

good luck. Dont fall off the roof.

[Deputy Bates]

Thank you Vitruvius & pmb1010 for your advice/suggestions.

Found out motor had 30 degree shaft. Checked all alignments and everything looked good. Replaced existing (weather exposed) DiSEqC switch with new Chieta Model WSD-2041 I saw recommended in forums (physically much larger than old switch) and mounted in new "DiSEqc Weather Resistance Case" I found on bay for $5.98 with free ship, see photos. Crawled back down ladder, sent dish to 110 via USALS and Bam 90%+ signal quality on most transponders. Then went to 61.5w and 129w and both had strong quality signals so alignment was fine, D-switch bad. Switch enclosure should help prolong switch life.

Thanks again, great community here.

[Jim-S]

Great, it's nice to let the other forum members know how the problem was resolved, it may help us some day. Thank you.
Jim

[satnutwillb]

What he said.