Phlatwound Takes Over Care and Feeding of the Birdview Spoon

[phlatwound]

I have gotten sidetracked from the Spoon project but should be back on it soon, appreciate the thoughts.

So, everything thing else aside, do you agree that there is no way this dish (or any other polar mount that is on a plumb pole) will track the arc unless the main elevation bar is set VERY close to the latitude elevation?

I am going to study your post some more and digest it, will be back in a day or so, thx.

 

[FaT Air]

Yes the polar axis has to be aligned with the earths rotational axis. I.E set to your latitude, to enable tracking the arc. (Modified slightly to use the "Modified Declination Angle, if provisioned for)
I (day)dream in 3D, Don't ask me to draw them.
Actually thought this through the spoon quandary a while ago, it took a while for me to formulate the description into a reasonably understandable statement. At least I hope it makes sense.

I have gotten sidetracked from the Spoon project

Sometimes I find it very rewarding to "walk away" from a problem. The solution seems to appear by itself. Budda- Bing, Budda-boom.

 

[phlatwound]

I have been holding my digital angle finder on the back of my mount and running it to zero degrees to determine if the mount was at apex, and assuming that the dish was also looking as high as it could at that point in the mount travel.

Also am assuming that the offset of the feed support and the counteracting offset of the wedge on the back of the dish are inline with the long dimension of the dish.

I am going to shoot the elevation (with a builders level, also incorrectly called a "transit" by many) of the 2 points on the ends to the long dimension at edges of the dish. If those 2 points are at the same elevation when the mount is zeroed that means the reflector is all "lined-up" with the mount...and also means the dish is looking as high as it can for whatever elevation the main elevation bar is set for.

Having said all that, I still think I am going to find that I will lock my true south sat @ 93W with an elevation bar reading of around 34 degrees, and to lock it with the bar set at my modified polar angle (37.63 degrees), I would need to kick the bottom of the dish out (decrease declination) by 3+ degrees.

We'll see I guess, but it's not going to happen soon, too many other irons in the fire, got plenty of working dishes...and don't really watch all that much tv anyway.

If you made it all the way through these ramblings help yourself to a cold one, on me...if they made any sense you may have had too many already.