Twisting by the pole

[turbosat]

I can't ever remember this, and hate to do by experimentation again. Tracking the arc> if I have to raise elevation on SBS6, and lower a bit to get good signal on G10, do I turn the entire mount on the pole to the west, or east? I'm thinking west, toward the sat that needs lowering.......but I have lost my 20yr old satellite install manual.
thks
more: yes this is a c-band polar mount dish and pole, its just alittle bit out of whack

 

[Lynskyn]

You would need to go east in that scenario. The way I remember it is this - if the dish has to be lower on the west side, if I swing it to the east, I will have to run the actuator to the west to focus back on the satellite, which will in turn lower the dish. And vice versa.

 

[bill190]

What I do is got to a sat in the west and see if the dish needs to go up or down to get a better signal (I lightly press up/down on the dish with my hand to see if I get a better signal).

Then do same thing with an east sat.

If both east and west need to go up, then the arc adjustment needs to go down and the dish elevation up.*

If both east and west need to go down, then the arc adjustment needs to go up and the dish elevation down.*

If east needs to go up and west needs to go down, then I rotate the whole works on the pole toward the east.**

If east needs to go down and west needs to go up, then I rotate the whole works on the pole toward the west.**

* To make the arc adjustment, I first move the dish back to my due south satellite and get a signal on my coax attached signal meter. Then I adjust the arc just a little, then adjust dish elevation the opposite until I get a perfect signal on the south satellite again (perfect up/down = pressing with hand on dish to go up gets lower signal reading / pressing with hand on dish to go down gets lower signal reading).

** Before rotating the "whole works" on the pole, I use a pen or pencil and make a little mark on the pole and the clamp which is attached to the pole. Then I can always move the dish back to this position. So my marks would look like this before moving anything...

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Then I move it slightly and it looks like this...

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Then I check my east west sats again. If it got worse, I realize I moved it the wrong direction, but with the marks there, it is easy to go the same amount the opposite direction.

 

[turbosat]

Thanks guys, I've done this so many times it should be automatic by now, but for some reason I never figure it out except by trial-error lol. I found my book this morning too>you're both right. Since I'm dealing with KU sats the adjustments are much more tedious, 1/4 turn of a nut on the elevation and declination bolts makes a big difference in these digital signals! When the rain stops I will try it again.