Used CS 6000 question- trouble picking up Satellites

[textalon]

Hello to everyone, I've enjoyed reading as many posts as time allows in the past weeks and now I have a question.
I'm in the N. Central Tex. area recently bought a used CS 6000 and a Fortec 90 cm dish with a universal 0.4 dB Single Output LNBF. On a manual mount without a motor I've only been able to get Galaxy 25 by slowly moving the dish up and down and left to right. I guess my question is what is the best way to "hunt" for Satellites in the arc by doing it manually as I've described and using the menus on the CS 6000. I also hooked the 6k up to my subscription DN 500 dish and was able to see the free channels with strong "signal" & "quality" in the 90s on both the DN 500 Dish and while watching G25 on the Fortec.

 

[Anole]

Get one (or all) of the satellite finder programs/web pages.
TheList at the top of this page is good.
GeoSatFinder will print you out a PDF file of all the birds.
Sadoun web site has a sat finder.

Get a compass, and use the magnetic heading off the printouts to aim the dish.
Dial in whatever skew is called for.
Adjust elevation to find your bird, (some dishes have several degrees of error)
BUT, when bird-hunting, tune your receiver to an expected transponder on that satellite.
We have lists of strong transponders to use (see TheList, and Iceberg has another list on this forum).

 

[turbosat]

One thing to remember, as you go east or west from your 'true south' satellite, the one located nearest your longitude, the dish's elevation will slightly decrease. I had a hard time keeping that in mind. You're tracking a curve in the sky-not a straight line.

 

[textalon]

Right, I understand about the arcs being steeper or shallower with the offset angle and the arc dropping the farther east and west you go.My first dish was a 10 ft. with a homebrew C band receiver I built in 1978. I've just been away from the hobby for many years. etc.. I guess my issue is more with the menus of the 6k and what to set it on to get a greater number of bird hits while playing in the back yard with the dish and having a TV and the 6k on a table next to me. I can find G25 with no problem over and over again but just have not found any others.