can the reference point be away from true south

[witold]

i'm at 28N and 80 W. my dish is set for amc 4 (104W) far away from my true south. i have a good reception on it without playing with declination . i used to have stationary sat on it. now i added motor sg2100. i wonder if i could use it as true south and set on it reference point. if yes what are the drawbacks, if no what should i do?

[boroda1]

You may use amc4 as a reference point, but your south sat is AMC5 at 79W.
If you can get the best signal from both, and your must is perfectly vertical, you are done.

[rainman]

using usals you can use any sat to align on it just makes it easier setting up on your true south to help get all your settings right.skew,elevation angles.and azimuth.but yes any sat will do for alignment as long as you can get all of the sats.

[elgemcdlf]

The simple answer is yes as you have already received BUT your dish elevation settings you currently have may not be the same as the settings for the dish with the motor so you basically are starting from scratch anyway so unless 79 is not viewable you will find setup far easier using it as your sat to align on.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by witold

i'm at 28N and 80 W. my dish is set for amc 4 (104W) far away from my true south. i have a good reception on it without playing with declination . i used to have stationary sat on it. now i added motor sg2100. i wonder if i could use it as true south and set on it reference point. if yes what are the drawbacks, if no what should i do?

I agree with all the responses here, but I fear that they were worded in a way that might allow some mis-communication, so I'll confuse things more.
First, I agree that you'll find things MUCH easier if you start with your actual true south sat.
You "can" align the mount by using AMC4, but I'm concerned about your comment about using that as a "reference point". Ie what you could do, is use the USALS feature to goto AMC4, then peak on that sat. Don't make the mistake of aiming at this sat when the motor is centered, which is what is typically thought of as the "reference point". And I "think" that it is possible to reset this reference point at a point other than when the motor is centered, but I wouldn't do this either. Ie the "reference point" should be your true south, and is what all the USALS calculations come from. I think that with DiseqC1.2, the reference point can be re-synced to other than true south, but I wouldn't try this as a starting point.

Ie what I'm getting at, is if when you refer to "reference point" you are just saying you are using AMC4 as a sat to align your mount, then OK that can be done, provided that you use USALS to go to it first, however if you are referring to using it as the motor-center position, or resetting your DiseqC1.2 reference point or USALS reference point to be aim at AMC4, then I think this is a mistake.

I fear I've confused things more, but I wasn't sure what you meant by reference point.

[brentb636]

Don't worry, Bill, your explanation made sense .

[witold]

thanks everyone for responce. they didnot make my life easier. having found amc4, i thought i'm home with positoning other sats. using usals it gets me nowhere. i try manually to pik on sats, and the signal is getting a bit better 13-26% (obviously not enough) . spent hours on it and still cant figure out how it works.
my motor zero is just a bit off my amc4. it finds it no problem when i want to return to this sat. but then i call for IA 5 KU ,and it goes nowhere . i thought it will find the other sats accordingly to amc4.
must start from basics;
1)is amc5 (79W) to the right from amc4(101W)?
2)if i dont have clear view to 79W(my true south), can i make amc4 my true south, and how
3) what is the difference between usals and diseqc
4) what steps i need to take to have it going?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by witold

thanks everyone for responce. they didnot make my life easier. having found amc4, i thought i'm home with positoning other sats. using usals it gets me nowhere. i try manually to pik on sats, and the signal is getting a bit better 13-26% (obviously not enough) . spent hours on it and still cant figure out how it works.
my motor zero is just a bit off my amc4. it finds it no problem when i want to return to this sat. but then i call for IA 5 KU ,and it goes nowhere . i thought it will find the other sats accordingly to amc4.
must start from basics;
1)is amc5 (79W) to the right from amc4(101W)?
2)if i dont have clear view to 79W(my true south), can i make amc4 my true south, and how
3) what is the difference between usals and diseqc
4) what steps i need to take to have it going?

First, if you're doing what I think you're doing, it's not surprising that you've lost things. (temporarily)

Re (1) if you're facing south, AMC5 is to the left of AMC4. It should be to your south (to your true south, not magnetic).

Re (2) you only have one true south. You "can" use other sats to align your system, but it's better to start with your true south, if you can. If you can see AMC4, it's unlikely that you can't see AMC5, because it's higher in the sky, and not terribly further to the east.

Re (3) USALS is sort of a user friendly automatic way of having your receiver tell your dish to move to a sat, but you have to have the mount aligned first, and it is based on having the motor center reference point at zero, which is due south. USALS can help you align your mount by sending the dish to the sat nearest south, then you can adjust your motor inclination and dish elevation to peak that sat, then you can use USALS to go to other sats. This assumes that your motor and receiver can do USALS.

Re (4),
First you need to first accurately set your motor inclination. Your motor should have either a latitude scale you can set, or an elevation scale, (which should be set to about 90 minus your latitude). Set that. Actually, I'd recommend using a number of about a half degree more than your latitude.
Second, depending upon what motor, and what dish you have, you need to set the dish elevation on your dish. There is a chart at http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installati...stallation.htm

If your motor isn't listed there, tell us what you have.

Third, assuming that you have the parameters for AMC5 set up in your receiver, and assuming that your receiver and motor have USALS, tell the receiver to go to AMC5. If you don't have USALS, you will have DiseqC, and should have a "nudge west" command or something like that. In that case, I'd tell it first to go to reference, then nudge it 2 or 3 clicks to the west.
Forth, you need to set your receiver to an active transponder on AMC5. Either the UTAH PBS, or the NYN are good choices that are always on. Make sure that you have the proper freq and SR values entered and you are tuning on the channel, and have a signal/SR meter showing on the screen. If you don't have a hand-held signal meter, you'll need to take your TV out to the dish so you can see the meter.
Loosen the bolts on your dish elevation, and slowly raise and/or lower the dish looking for increased signal/quality. Quality is most important. It will start out at zero, and only get above zero when you are locked onto the sat. If you don't have a quality meter, you'll have a lock indicator.
After you find the sat via the up and down movement, also peak the sat by moving the whole mount slightly east/west on the pole.
After everything is peaked, tighten everything down. Then using USALS, move the dish to some sat further west, again find a known active transponder. Peak this sat by making very slight east/west adjustments of the whole mount on the pole. Also use the buttons on the motor to make fine adjustments. Peak this sat as good as possible, then tighten all the bolts, making sure you don't loose reception upon tightening. Once you have done this to a sat fairly far to your west, you should be done. If things aren't tracking perfectly, you can go back and repeat the process, but if you were careful up to this point, everything should be as close as you can get it.

A lot of the above depends upon your specific hardware, so you should probably tell what you have, receiver, dish, motor, etc.