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Originally Posted by presidentsamito
***SETUP***
I am installing a 90cm dish with the Fortec Ultra Lifetime. I will use USALS to configure using the following information:
Long 71.5
Lat 41.5
HH90 Motor set to 41
Elevation setting on dish to 38.2
I set the motor at "O" degrees and point at true south (180)
Using compass, I find 180 and ADD 15 degrees for deviation
***QUESTION***
Using this method, what will be my far west and far east range? I am trying to figure out which birds will be in my path from here.
THANKS FOR HELP |
As far as what you can see line of sight, I think a good rule of thumb is add and subtract about 65 deg from your longitude. You may be able to pick up something a bit lower to the horizon than that, but only if you have a very clear view to the horizon, and there is no terrestrial interferrence, and obviously only if you are in the footprint of a sat with a Ku transponder in your case. The footprint thing is important though, as there are lots of sats up there that you'll have line of sight visibility to, but they are aimed elsewhere, like to south america.
BTW, relative to your "ADD 15 deg" statement above, it is sometimes confusing what the add/subtract implies as different compasses might lead to different results, since on some compasses, the pointer moves, and on other compasses, the scale moves. I think you have it right. In your case, true south would be a 195 deg compass heading, ie 15 deg west of magnetic south. It's also important to make several readings with a compass, and get away from the metal dish. Where I live, there are significant local variations. If I take a compass reading one place, and then move 10 feet, I often get results that are 5 degrees different or more. For that reason, I seldom use a compass to find true south. I use the sun. If you go to
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.html you can find out what time of day the sun is at 180deg true, then go outside, and locate which way the shadows are going. Note, it doesn't use daylight time, and unfortunately this time of year it is less accurate since the shadows are so short, but I think it is still better than using a compass.
EDIT: Note, the 65 deg rule of thumb is for temporate latitudes, ie 40-45 deg. At lower latitudes, you can add a few degrees, but it is still very dependent on your local environemt, re hills, trees, interference, etc.
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