BUD alignment

[ZetaMale]

This is odd - my location is 103.6W longitude so I figured that I should pick up 103W (SES3) to the east of true south. However, I'm picking it up to the west of true south. Am I right that the dish should point to east of true south when looking at 103.0 W from my location? The pole is plumb and the feed is centered. dishpointer.com says the dish should be pointing at azimuth 179.0 degrees true which is east of true south - am I right or am I wrong?

 

[goaliebob99]

Correct it should be looking east. Perhaps your dish was moved a bit as that tends to happen with wind over time. I have had mine move on the pole like that. I had to re-adjust it.

 

[ZetaMale]

Well, I realigned the antenna today & SQ has greatly increased and the antenna, so far, is tracking the arc. I haven't checked all viewable sats from my location but the SQ meter in Kaffeine is showing SQ's greater than 80 on all sats. During realignment 2 sats were showing SQ greater than 75 on my Birdog. So, this is a mystery to me as to why I'm picking up SES3 west of true south instead of east. I've confirmed the longitude of my location with Google maps, Sportrac Map GPS receiver, and the coordinates put into dishpointer.com shows my location. Strange.

 

[Titanium]

Use a solar calculator to provide the date and time the sun is at the apex for your location. The feedhorn shadow will indicate the true dish orientation. Here is an example screen capture from an iOS app "Mr. Sun" showing the exact sun position for a given date, time and location.

My guess is that the magnetic declination may be slightly off in your area. Quite common to have magnetic variances.

 

[a33]

Also when the LNB arm is not exactly perpendicular to the dish, you would receive a satellite at an unexpected angle.
Might that be the case?
I've seen it once in a topic...

Greetz,
A33

 

[wvman]

Use a solar calculator to provide the date and time the sun is at the apex for your location. The feedhorn shadow will indicate the true dish orientation. Here is an example screen capture from an iOS app "Mr. Sun" showing the exact sun position for a given date, time and location.
View attachment 124267


My guess is that the magnetic declination may be slightly off in your area. Quite common to have magnetic variances.

I just tried to get it and it said it's no longer available.

 

[Titanium]

Bummer!

The app still runs great on latest OS. Looks like there are other similar sun position calculator apps, but I don't have any experience with them.

 

[a33]

As sun-behind-the-satellite calculator I always use: http://www.satellite-calculations.com/Satellite/lookangles.htm
Very good calculator.
You can also read the sun outage date from it.

greetz,
A33

 

[ZetaMale]

Use a solar calculator to provide the date and time the sun is at the apex for your location. The feedhorn shadow will indicate the true dish orientation. Here is an example screen capture from an iOS app "Mr. Sun" showing the exact sun position for a given date, time and location.
View attachment 124267


My guess is that the magnetic declination may be slightly off in your area. Quite common to have magnetic variances.

When the sun comes back I'll give it a try. But, it appears that my dish is tracking the arc OK which is something I wouldn't expect if something wasn't correctly aligned.

 

[wagonman76]

Are you by chance using the arc only one side of center? If so then the arc can be tracked pretty well (good enough for most reception) even if the dish rotation on the pole is off. Of course the other adjustments will be off as well to compensate. Mine was set up this way at the old house for many years and since I couldn't see the east half, I never knew. 85W was center and that's where the woods cut off the view. I got 80 quality across the arc but that's all my Traxis would show. 99 quality on the old 4DTV. At the new house I can see more to the east, and have a much easier way of making adjustments, so I took more time to make sure I see the arc better.