What am I doing wrong?

[linsladeboy]

Hi everyone, set up T&K brackets and motorized dish last week which went extremely well.
Pole is perfectly vertical on three sides. Connected receiver this morning and here I am talking to you now still without a bloody picture. Can somebody guide to where I am obviously going wrong?

My coordinates are 51.9 north latitude and and .625 degrees west longitude with a clear view to 0 degrees South.
As I said, pole is vertical.
Moteck motor is set to 38 degrees inclination(I must admit I had this set to 52 degrees for a long time today before I realized cock-up),
dish to 30 degrees declination.
Motor, dish and LNB arm all seem to be in line .
I have been using a cheapie hand compass to line whole shooting match to Thor at 1 degree West and receiver to scan to BBC World channel on that satellite by connecting cable to LNB and bypassing motor for now as your instructions.
Best signal I got on Technomate was about 50 % just before dark after adjusting motor to correct angle and then lost it again!My son is checking signal whilst I'm on the roof moving dish about.
Have I got settings on receiver incorrect?
At present, motor and USALS options are set to off as am trying to locate Thor as per instructions. Should they be on?
Any suggestions on what you think I could try tomorrow to make sure I haven't done anything wrong?

[Jimdefruit]

Magnetic south and true south are not the same. In your location, true south is about 2.75 degress east of magnetic south. may be the other way.

That 30 degrees seems a bit out to me. The angle does depend on the dish offset. Try to get the motor set true south in its mid position and then move 0.8 degrees west from there. Set your receiver to the BBC World frequency and then change the elevation until you get the picture. In the correct position, the dish will appear to be just backwards from the vertical position.

[BlackHawk]

Just a quicky, dish elevation = a number in your motor handbook - declination angle (shown at the back of your hand book. My moteck motor handbook is somewhere in the shed, no lights so cannot get it at the moment.
Anyhow your dish should be slightly off of vertical, leaning back a few degrees.
BH

[linsladeboy]

Oh my God, what a prat I am !
I think I have been reading TOO MANY FORUMS and got myself totally confused with elevation/declination angles. According to Moteck manual my elevation is 38 degrees/declination 7.47 degrees.
Do you think that maybe 30 degrees declination is for fixed systems or should I just shut up as don't know what I'm talking about!!!

[BlackHawk]

Found my moteck handbook
I quote
Dish elevation = 40 minus declination angle, in your case this would be
Dish elevation = 40 minus 7.47 = 32.53

Dish elevation is not the same as your position on the earth elevation (90 - latitude).

You're not a pr*t, something new to you so you are not expected to know all. Hence the reason for boards such as this "satellite Help"

Have fun today with your setting up, it's just stopped chucking it down here.

BH

[barr6868]

I've had similar problems with the set up of my motorised system.

I was trying to follow guides about azimuth, elevation and declination and matching them with the scales on the motor/dish.

Kept finding some sat's and losing others, no matter what I tried.

Decided today, to say :quote: bugger it, and follow my eye.
Set up on Thor, and got the best signal I could (the weans checking the signal meter on the receiver)
Scale on the elevation on the motor was way off what I thought (according to the arrow indentation on the body).

Now tracking a range of sat's from 30 W thru 1w and 5E to 28 E (lost them last week trying to find 5E). 8)
Enough for me at the moment.
Also, my true south position was well out, and have discovered that anything east of 28.2 is right behind a water tower at the top of the hill (which ironically has loads of wee transmitters and some small dishes). :spite:

[linsladeboy]

Hi everyone, still couldn't get a signal earlier today so swallowed my pride and got a mate of my brother's who does fixed dish installation as a hobby - can't do motorized apparently. He's set me up on Hotbird so I can watch Art Sport (bargain for £40). Watched Spurs game this afternoon!

Looking at set up , motor is set to 40 degrees and dish to 32. Is this correct for my coordinates?
Problem now is that motor is still set to 0 degrees and dish is at 13 degrees so it's not a simple matter of cabling from motor to LNB as dish is now on the arc , or is it! :?

I think I'll leave it till weather warms up and have another bash( I've tippexed markings on pole)

[BlackHawk]

Regretfully you are miles out for tracking the arc. Never mind you can watch the art sport channel to your hearts content. Then as you mentioned have a go when the weather improves,
Mark everthing, dish, motor and position of motor on the pole. That way you can always go back to watching art sport.
BH

[BGonaSTICK]

I could jump in and try to make some helpful suggestions, but my best work is already in our motor guide.

All I can say other than that is that you should only read and follow one guide, and it should of course be mine

If you follow it to the letter, you really can't go wrong.

[Jimdefruit]

Adding to what Stick has said, there is no shortcut to setting up a motorised satellite dish. You MUST start at due south ish and work from there. If you want to set up on a specific satellite then get a static dish and forget about motorising it.