I just noticed in your signature file you have the DG380 HH motor, how do you like it? I have the Winegard 1 meter also and may put it back in service someday, its heavy and needs some power to move, is the 380 up to it?
The motor works great. It's my first motor and had it installed and working across the arc in 30 minutes from getting the box delivered.
I installed it differently than any way I've known people to. I first aimed the dish at a satellite with the same elevation requirement as I need for the correct declination. I needed a dish angle of 28.3 degrees to get a declination angle of 6.7. So what I did was find out what sat I would have to aim at with an elevation of 28.3. Turned out to be Galaxy 16 at 99W. I aimed it at G16 and locked down the elevation bolts. Then I set the latitude and put the dish on the motor as straight as I could. Then drove the motor to Horizons 2 with USALS. Then I just turned the motor on the mount right/left until I had it. Shot it over to G18 and it was still on. Time to tighten it down. Done.
There was one problem I had that I was able to repair myself. There were a lot of metal shavings on the threads of the u-bolts. I thought I got most of them off. I'd set it up on the ground first because it's my first motor and like I said I had no problems. Because I've got my dishes at the back of the house to keep the wife happier I needed to get it up on a tall pole to get LOS from 116W and west. So I get the 14' mast up and I heaved the thing up using a 6' ladder by myself to the top of the thing. That was exercise, I'll tell ya. Anyway, I start tighening up the bottom u-bolt to keep it from sliding down the mast and move on to the top bolts. I used my fingers to start and got them as far as I could go but I still had 1/2" to go and they wouldn't move. Tried an adjustable wrench and I was twisting the bolts with no success. Then I tried backing them off and they wouldn't move either. So I tried a pair of pliers and they were throwing sparks.
So here I've got a 35lb dish and motor 14' up in the air with the bottom bolts tight but the top loose as hell. It's 30F and it's starting to drizzle and the wind is coming up. I had this installed earlier on the ground on a smaller pole so I know there's nothing wrong with the threads. I ended up having to take the mast down like you'd cut a tree down and catch it before it hits the ground. I get the bracket off the motor and take it into the house. Sprayed some Seafoam on it, soaking the threads, and still won't budge.
I ended up cutting the sides of the nuts off with a hacksaw and that allowed the nut to open up enough I could thread them off. Once they were back the width of the nut I found that two or three threads were just plain missing now, all the way around.
Off to the hardware store I go and that got interesting too. I took the u-bolt with me to make sure I got the right size. Looked like a 5/16" nut to me but that wouldn't thread. But I remembered that the motor is made in China, and they use metric sizes. Turns out to be an 8mm.
The new nuts went over the missing threads with a little help from an adjustable wrench. Working great now. The only thing I can figure that would cause the nuts to bind like that was either they were cross threaded, but the nuts were on 1-1/2" so discounted that. Or I didn't clean all of the little metal flecks that I found on the threads off and they bound up in the threads of the nuts. I am unable to explain why the nuts both bound directly across from each other, or why I mounted it perfectly fine with no issues a few hours before.
In the end I put the dish on the ground, out front of the house. Not putting anything up in the air like that again. Certainly would be difficult to tweak with a step ladder when necessary that high up.
I attached a photo that I took this morning through my front window.
