Holiday FTA Tinkering, Need Advice

[greyskies]

Hello one and all, and happy home from work day, from NOT so sunny South Florida:

Been toying with the dish and motor over the weekend, reinstalled my mast (plumb as can be, YEEHA!!!!). Now have USALS finding all of my sats for which I can receive signal, but AMC5 signal is dramatically lower from 70s and 80s to low 50s. I am using an SG2100 motor on a Hotdish 75 cm dish.

My thought is that the settings for the SG2100 from the manual's directions and table of data, are slightly off from optimal settings. If you have or are familiar with this motor, my question is whether you subtract the declination angle as set forth in the table inside the manual, or do you use your actual magnetic declination for your area and current date?

My latitude is 26.113639 N
My longitude is 80.271019 W
Magnetic declination is 5 deg. 29' W increasing by 0 deg. 4' W per year.

The manual has my declination angle at 4.4 (or thereabouts, don't have it in front of me at the moment), and subtracting that from 30, as directed by the manual, results in 25.6. Yet if I subtract my current magnetic declination angle from 30, it results in 24.7. Nearly a full degree of difference. Would that be the correct angle number to use, or do I stick with the manual? Any other thoughts out there as to why AMC5 signal dropped precipitously after making mast plumb, resetting dish and motor so that USALS works like a charm in finding other satellites along the Clarke Belt?


P.S. - The source for my latitude, longitude, and magnetic declination angle information is:

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/geomag/jsp/struts/calcDeclination

 

[PSB]

Stick with the manual, magnetic deviation is to be taken into account only on your east west setting (Azimuth), nothing to do with up and down declination.

Motor should be set at 64 deg. (one side will be your lat. 26 deg.)

Dish should be set to 26 deg.

You should not need to worry about the declination value at all, just slight movements up and down with the dish to peak the signal.

 

[greyskies]

Thanks for Response

Stick with the manual, magnetic deviation is to be taken into account only on your east west setting (Azimuth), nothing to do with up and down declination.

Motor should be set at 64 deg. (one side will be your lat. 26 deg.)

Dish should be set to 26 deg.

You should not need to worry about the declination value at all, just slight movements up and down with the dish to peak the signal.

Took your advice, however, I changed the motor's setting to 27 (and ?) (I am curious as to why that worked so much better, oh well, don't argue with success.), and was able to increase level and quality on AMC 5, IA 5, AMC4 (Peoples Network), etc. Also, I am now able to finally receive channels on Galaxy 10R (123W). Awesome. Thought that I had a problem with my neighbor's trees to the west, but voila, I can receive Galaxy 10R.

Can't wait for the new LNB once they are available, and I guess eventually, I will want to purchase a bigger dish (currently using Hotdish 75 cm - 30 inch).

Take care, and thanks again.