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So I've been reading here and there about satellite for a few years, but just purchased my first setup. I bought a Winegard 2076 + SG2100 + Invacom QPH-031 combo through ebay and am trying to get it set up. I've run into a couple difficulties, first that the angle finder I got seems to be off, but I think I've got that figured out, but another issue is that the Winegard dish's elevation scale seems to wayyyy off, so I am trying to figure out the calculations to set this thing up with just an angle finder.

Mounting the the pole plumb was a painstaking effort because the Johnson angle finder I bought (also from ebay) seems to be 1.5 degrees off. When I adjusted the pole's plumbness by making sure one side of the pole measured @ 90 degrees, the opposite side would be off just a bit, so I kept tweaking till opposite sides of the pole gave me the same reading, 91.5 degrees. I think I read a post a while back while researching that the Johnson angle finder is off by a degree or so. If anybody else has had this problem, please let it be known.

The problem I am having now is that the Winegard 2076 I got seems to have had the elevation scale shifted towards the front of the dish so that it is no longer accurate, only going down to only 26 degrees or so, even w/ the bottom lnb arm bolt reversed. Since I don't trust the gauge on the dish I want to try and set its elevation as well as the motor pole's using just an angle finder, skipping the gauge on the Winegard all together.

Now I've read that the sg2100 motor adds 30 degrees but when I measured it after setting the latitude, it was more like 19 degrees (compensating -1.5 degrees for error). My true south satellite SBS6 is at azimuth 180.3 degrees and requires the dish gauge be set at an elevation of 42.6 when not considering the motor. So I'm thinking 42.6 minus 19 should be the dish elevation with the motor in line, since when pointing to true south the dish still must hit the same elevation, only compensating for what the motor adds - this works out to a dish elevation of 23.6. But since this is a Ku Offset dish, 23.6 is the reading on the dish angle bracket I should be looking for, not what I want to see on the angle finder. According to to Winegard the DS-2076 is offset by 24 degrees, so if the angle finder reads 0 degrees when placed on the straight back arm of the dish, it is really receiving from an elevation of 24 degrees. So I take 23.6 and subtract 24 to get the angle I should look for on the angle finder, which works out to -0.4. Since the dish is on the motor pole, the motor pole's elevation will also sum up on the angle finder reading, so I add the 19 degrees to the elevation I expect to see when measuring from the dish. 19 + (-0.4) = 18.6 degree reading from the back arm of the dish when hanging off the motor.

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Here are some of my calculations -

motor pipe elevation = 42.6 (elevation for sbs6, my true south @ 180.3 azimuth) - 23.6 (dish elevtion w/ motor according to sg2100 manual) = 19 (just what I measured after setting the latitude on the motor gauge)

dish elevation (setting using the dish scale) = 30 (motor pipe angle) - 6.4 (declination) = 23.6

dish elevation (using angle finder, sat mounted on a plumb pole) = 30 (motor pipe angle) - 6.4 (declination) - 24 (ku dish offset) = -0.4
.....also....
dish elevation (using angle finder, sat mounted on a plumb pole) = 42.6 (elevation for sbs6, my true south @ 180.3 azimuth) - 19 (I measured after setting the latitude on the motor gauge) - 24 (ku dish offset) = -0.4

The two different ways of calculating the elevation of the dish agree, which makes me more confident, because I am not sure how the 30 degree motor pipe angle and declination calculation work - the second is easier for me to understand.

finally...

dish elevation (using angle finder, sat mounted on motor mount) = 30 (motor pipe angle) - 6.4 (declination) - 24 (dish offset) + 19 (motor pipe elev) = 18.6

Does this sound right? Tommorow I will go back up on the roof and tweak until the angle finder tells me the dish is @ ~18.6 degrees while on the motor mount, and just hope it works.