A question regarding HH motor setup

[pestie]

Hi, all! I'm brand new to the FTA scene, but I've had some success this past weekend. I got my first-ever FTA dish/receiver set up and working and, as I suspected, I'm totally hooked. So now my next step will be to motorize my 30" x 40" ex-Primestar dish. I found the thread where people discussed alternate mounts for that dish and I'm quite sure I can do it. But I do have a question about HH motors in general.

Am I right in understanding that an HH motor needs to be mounted with its elevation setting set to the latitude in order to correctly track the arc? So, if I were to devise a mount for my Primestar dish, I'd need to be able to adjust its elevation to receive the due-south satellite in my area? I assume if I were to "cheat" and simply strap the dish onto the motor's pole and adjust the motor's mount to get a signal that I'd never get one from any other satellite, because the motor wouldn't correctly track the arc, yes?

The Primestar dish is kicking ass as far as pulling in sigals. I'd hate to have to scrap it and pay a couple hundred bucks for a 120cm dish.

 

[PSB]

Welcome to the forum!

Yes the motor elevation is usually set the same as your latitude (some motors like the SG2100 have lat. on one side and Elev. on the other) this angle can never be altered in any way or you will not follow the arc. The dish elevation is the only thing that you can change until you hit the signal, then all the other satellites will fall into place as the motor moves!

 

[pestie]

Thanks for the reply! I was afraid of that. Being in Florida, I need the dish at a pretty high elevation angle, so if I'm going to kludge together a mount I'm going to have to be creative - maybe use a couple of brass door hinges or something so I can tilt the dish upwards. I'll give it some thought. I need to get a pipe in the ground permanently before I do anything else anyway.