I'm thinking of making a motorized mount for one of my 1.2 meter dishes (or whatever may come along). As I recall from my BUD days, there were two things to set. One was the axis that the dish turned on which is parallel to the N/S pole of the Earth and who's angle would be equal to your latitude. The other was ( I can't remember) called a "look angle" or something like that. I think it was 6 or 8 degrees off from the other axis. That made it so you could track the Clarke belt accurately.
Does anyone know where I can get info on the "look angle" part?
This stuff is quite similar to polar aligning a mount for a telescope. Probably the funniest one I saw was a guy that used the rear end out of a model A or T. Where the wheels would normally bolt on he hooked to a short pillar on the south end and a long pillar on the north end. This gave him his polar axis. He hooked his telescope to where the universal joint would normally be. Needless to say this mount was pretty sturdy.
A mount like that would handle about any size dish and would be able to be pointed from horizon to horizon. You could turn it with a geared stepper motor or just about any motor for that matter.
Does anyone know where I can get info on the "look angle" part?
This stuff is quite similar to polar aligning a mount for a telescope. Probably the funniest one I saw was a guy that used the rear end out of a model A or T. Where the wheels would normally bolt on he hooked to a short pillar on the south end and a long pillar on the north end. This gave him his polar axis. He hooked his telescope to where the universal joint would normally be. Needless to say this mount was pretty sturdy.
A mount like that would handle about any size dish and would be able to be pointed from horizon to horizon. You could turn it with a geared stepper motor or just about any motor for that matter.
