Alignment issues

NorthernOhioGuy

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
May 19, 2017
86
146
Ohio
So we had a couple of pretty windy (50-60 mph) days here recently, and I suspected it may have moved my dish ever so slightly. I was not getting the transponders on 65W with as good a signal as I had in the past (I had never been able to get any signals east of here, I assumed because of trees that were in the way). We had nice weather outside today so I went out to see if I could improve things at all.

My setup is a Geosat Pro 90 on a Staab HH-90 with a OS Mio running the motor. My longitude is about 84.3 so I used 87W as my south satellite when I set things up originally. I moved the dish over to 65W, and went outside to see if I could improve things. I found that my dish was actually aiming a bit high at 65W. I dropped the elevation just a bit and the signal improved there tremendously, better than it had ever been in the past. I did a scan there and picked up a few additional transponders that I was unable to see before.

I then returned to the house and moved the dish to see how reception had changed on other satellites. As I moved back to the west I noticed that I had lost about half of the channels on 87W and then had nothing as I moved on to 91W, 97W, 99W. At this point I moved the dish to the east and was actually able to scan in some channels on 58W and 45W, which as I said earlier I had never been able to do before. However, I don't know if this is solely due to the adjustment I made or due to the leaves all being gone from the trees.

At this point I knew something definitely was not right and it was going to be getting dark soon. I moved the dish back to 97W and brought the elevation up so that the wife could watch Positiv and the kids watch Smile tonight. How things currently are setting now, I cannot get 65W or anything to the east of it at all. I have lost the PBS stations on 87W and the news feeds there look a little weaker than normal. As I move west from there, things are pretty much back to the levels they were at prior to me messing with things today. I did however notice that the signals on 125W seem to be a little stronger than I recall, but it has been months since I've had the dish there since we get two PBS affiliates OTA.

Now I am wondering what all may be out of alignment. I plan to go outside tomorrow and try to get things re-aligned as best I can. I am thinking maybe the whole motor, dish and all could have got moved ever so slightly to the west by the winds coming out of the southeast? Would that cause the dish to be aimed slightly high for the one bird (65W) that is to my east? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated, as always.
 
If everything is perfectly plumb. Then, you do not have the setting on the motor correct. If you have not in the past, follow over my guide here and make sure all is correct.
 
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Sounds to me the the dish and HH motor moved on the pole, I would put your elevation back to were it used to work, then go to 65W and ever so slighty move the assembly on the pole for best signal.

That was my thought. I believe my plan is gong to be to read through Michael's guide and the manual for the hh-90 to make sure I have all my numbers figured out correctly and entered into the receiver correctly. Then go outside in the daylight and make sure my elevation is set as close to correct as possible, after that see how signals are coming in while aiming at various birds, then adjust the entire motor, dish, and all on the pole if I'm not back to where things were before today.
 
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I recently went through a bout of thinking my motor had rotated on the pole, when what had REALLY happened was my GSP90 had rotated on the HH90 shaft! Duh, should've checked that first, but I still don't know how three bolts got loose enough to let that happen. (I'm thinking it had something to do with the fact that it was an ill fit to the HH90 in the first place with that stupid flange on the bottom of the shaft, I had to halfway disassemble the GSP mount to get it on there when I switched to the HH90 from my old motor.)
 
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Thanks for all the input so far. So I had a little time to go out and work on this some this afternoon before going to the Thanksgiving get together that was cancelled last week and then all of the sudden uncancelled today. First, I checked the coordinates entered in the receiver and verified my math for figuring the dish elevation. I made sure I got my elevation put where I thought it needed to be, and adjusted the entire mount on the pole to get my signal up on the 87W satellite. I got everything tightened down where I believe is the correct place for it to be tightened down.

As I was short on time, I did not check every transponder on every satellite, but it appears so far that I am back to receiving everything that I was receiving prior to this week. However, some signals seem to be a little on the weak side.

Also, when aimed at what should be 65W the signal improves if I put slight downward pressure on the dish. I lose the signal if I put slight upward pressure on the dish. When I run it way over to what should be 125W the signal improves with slight upward pressure and diminishes with slight downward pressure.

This suggests to me that the mount is still not facing directly south, and needs to be turned very slightly yet. Will it be better to make this adjustment with the dish pointed toward 87W or toward either 65W or 125W?

Thanks again
 
Go towards the bottom of this page, you will see exactly what you are asking.
Look at the diagram that shows the farthest sats off arc. You are so close, just a tiny turn on the pole and you will be uptown. Don't forget the nail polish when you hit it.
 
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Go towards the bottom of this page, you will see exactly what you are asking.
Look at the diagram that shows the farthest sats off arc. You are so close, just a tiny turn on the pole and you will be uptown. Don't forget the nail polish when you hit it.
Thank you so much! That puts an actual picture on paper to what I was seeing in my mind. Now, hopefully I have enough time to get this taken care of tomorrow before the expected winter weather arrives.
 
FYI:
When you are using USALS and the USALS rotary position is now spot on for all your sats, a correction for your axis-zero-position will also mean that a counter-correction for dish-alignment on the motor axis will be needed.
In other words: also the motor-to-dish zero-aligment might need tweaking.

Good luck on your final steps!
Greetz,
A33
 
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A big THANK YOU to everyone for the suggestions, ideas, and guidance. We are currently tuned in even better than we were before the wind storms. I'm sure there is still some room for improvement, but I've had enough for today. We'll leave everything tightened down where it is at now for the time being.
 

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