Mounting A Satellite Dish Or Rotor

4  H-H Rotor

  1. As advised in the General Introduction, find the site latitude and longitude, the line of the meridian (True South or North) in the direction of the equator, the dish elevation on the meridian, and the azimuth of the satellite closest to the meridian:
    1. Go to the Alignment Settings Calculator page, enter appropriate values for latitude, longitude, and rotor crank angle, and if required dish offset or dimensions.  Print the result for future reference.
    2. Looking here ... ... print transponder and channel details of the meridian sat, so that later these can be used to verify that the correct one has been found.  For those in the UK, it'll be 0.8/1°W, 4°W, or 5°W.
  2. It's absolutely critical for a rotor to ensure that the fixing post is truly vertical
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    Using a spirit level with both vertical and horizontal levels, perhaps less accurately a plumb-line, measure at least two points at right-angles to each other …
  3. Find the meridian by one of the three methods explained in the General Introduction, and note a distant landmark in the required direction.
  4. Azimuth, horizontal direction, is set directly by the rotor mountings:
    1. Ensuring that the rotor is at the central position (no E or W deflection), mount it on the post with the arm pointing exactly at the meridian landmark;
    2. Mount the dish on the rotor arm, ensuring that it too points exactly at the landmark.
  5. Vertical elevation of the dish is determined by two settings:
    1. The rotor will have a tilt scale with latitude markings, but some measure from vertical, others from horizontal.  Assuming the rotor could go to each extreme, if the line of its bearings would be horizontal at 0°, vertical at 90°, set the Calculator's Tilt value (very close to the latitude).  However, if the line of the bearings would be vertical at 0°, horizontal at 90°, set 90 - Tilt.
    2. Dish elevation will differ from that for a fixed dish to compensate for the rotor tilt and crank angles.
      • If there's a scale and either no offset or as is usual the scale compensates for the offset, set the Calculator's Elevation value directly on the scale.
      • If the dish is offset but has a 'true', uncompensated scale, then the offset must be subtracted from the elevation.  The Calculator can do this automatically via How to find the dish elevation, Other.
      • The Calculator can also work out the angle for a cardboard template if the dish has no scale.
  6. Once all this is done, drive the rotor the short distance to the meridian sat, making absolutely certain that it is the correct sat, for example by checking the position in the receiver's control page, and then tuning in a transponder and checking what is being broadcast against the sat's Lyngsat page.  Once certain that the sat is correct, fine tune the dish elevation using a sat finder or the receiver's signal data.
  7. Then, if everything is correct, the whole arc should be found.  If satellites 'drop out' in ranges over the arc, this is usually a sign that the central point is off the meridian, and/or the mounting post isn't exactly vertical, and/or the dish elevation is wrong.