Dish assembly - Setting Latitude

[Boxbhoy]

Hi,

I'm installaing a 1m dish & Alsat Dark motor. It will be going on a steel pole with T&K brackets.

When assembling the dish and motor I know I need to set my latitude on the motor bracket onto the pole (56 degrees).

My question is what latitude do I set on the bracket between dish and motor pole?

In the Motor assemble guide it shows an angle of 35 degrees for something. Should I set it to that?

thanks in advance for any help!

[ramjet]

Hi,

I'm installaing a 1m dish & Alsat Dark motor. It will be going on a steel pole with T&K brackets.

When assembling the dish and motor I know I need to set my latitude on the motor bracket onto the pole (56 degrees).

My question is what latitude do I set on the bracket between dish and motor pole?

In the Motor assemble guide it shows an angle of 35 degrees for something. Should I set it to that?

thanks in advance for any help!

your motor has the elevation on one side of the pole mounting bracket, as you are at 56 degrees north, set it to 56 on that bracket

[mdt]

set the motor lat to 56 and dish elevation bracket to 30 then ajust for best signal. regards mdt

[Boxbhoy]

Thanks for replying guys.

Why 30 degrees on the Dish bracket?

[ramjet]

Thanks for replying guys.

Why 30 degrees on the Dish bracket?

in your booklet it shows the dish elevation alongside your latitude

so for 56n it shows 27.2 in my booklet so I would have started around 27 to 28 degrees myself

[Boxbhoy]

Sorry, you've lost me now, what booklet? There was no booklet with the dish other than an assembly instruction.

There are 2 brackets wich need to have the elevation set. The bracket from Dish to Motor and then the dish from Motor to mounting pole.

Reading the various guides it says to set the second bracket - from Motor to mounting pole to my latitude (56N).

I'm confused!

[ramjet]

in post 1 you mentioned installing a darkmotor, a darkmotor comes with an assembly + instruction manual and has all the details in it
I have quoted you what is in my booklet

[Boxbhoy]

Indeed.

In post 1 I also ask "What do I set the dish bracket at" (i.e not the motor bracket)

[ramjet]

Indeed.

In post 1 I also ask "What do I set the dish bracket at" (i.e not the motor bracket)

and I mentioned in post #5 that according to the darkmotor booklet its 27.2 and that is where I would start (seeing as the booklet says so)

post #1 does not mention the dish bracket, it mentions the motor and pole

Hi,

I'm installaing a 1m dish & Alsat Dark motor. It will be going on a steel pole with T&K brackets.

When assembling the dish and motor I know I need to set my latitude on the motor bracket onto the pole (56 degrees).

My question is what latitude do I set on the bracket between dish and motor pole?

In the Motor assemble guide it shows an angle of 35 degrees for something. Should I set it to that?

thanks in advance for any help!

so as you see it mentions latitude , which is the motor bracket , nothing to do with the dish ELEVATION



the point here is that all the answers are in the darkmotor booklet that you get with the darkmotor
I fished mine out and used that to answer your questions

[digicon]

Just to reiterate what Ramjet and MDT have said if your latitude is 56? then set this on the motor itself to 56 and tighten all 4 bolts, then on the dish only set your scale to around 30 and just tighten the bolts loosely even hand tight will do as you will need to adjust when aligining for your true south satellite something like 0.8? west.

The 30 mark on the dish scale is just a rough estimate and you will more than likely have to adjust from 30 back down to get the correct angle when aligning everything for maximum signal.


The reason why you start at around the 30 mark is that not all dishes are the same but generally you will find it should be anything between the 25-30 mark when complete

[Boxbhoy]

Sorry, my wording in the OP is maybe confusing. When I said "bracket between dish and motor pole?" I was meaning the bracket suppllied with the dish not the motor.

After reading all the various guides I know I need to set the motor bracket at 56 for my latitude.

So It's 56 on the Motor Bracket and 30 (27.2 as per the booklet) on the dish bracket.

I'll need to read that booklet with the motor right enough.

Thanks for replying and sorry I'm a bit slow on the uptake!

[ramjet]

Thanks, when I read the words latitude, bracket, motor pole it all read as if you needed to confirm setting it to latitude 56n and not 34 or 35 elevation angle

the elevation angle of the dish is actually set to 34 minus your dish offset in your case, so if your dish offset is 6 degrees its 34 - 6 = 28
this is done on the dish bracketry itself close to the motor "spigot" mount , whereas the "motor pole" is the motor mounting pole and the motor mounting bracket

as digicon says, its usually somewhere between 25 and 30 , and mdt suggested the start point of 30 whereas in my booklet it says 27.2 which I quoted

so yes it is about terminology and trying to get across what you mean, and same for us answering you

so the mdt answer was worded to give you the very basics but was a good enough start point, whereas I was sidetracked on your latitude and motor mount, not dish mount

saying you did not have the darkmotor booklet didnt help but I tried to give you the best info from my darkmotor booklet

[Boxbhoy]

cheers Ramjet. I'm a total beginner with this so my grasp of the terminology is poor.

To be be honest your mention of my 'dish offset' confuses me more. I didn't know I had one!

Should I be setting the motor bracket to 56 right enough?

I've had a look at the booklet for the Alsat and as you say, in the Elevation and declinhoulation table it clearly says 27.2 for Dish Bracket angle for my latitude of 56.

It also says 34 for elevation angle and 7.8 for declination angle. Do I need to bother about these?

cheers

[ramjet]

at the front of your booklet is an explanation of those details

as digicon pointed out , the dishes have different offsets according to the manufacturer, and should be detailed in their paperwork under specifications

the large dishes you see abroad have centre mounted lnb,s and so have no offset

on the dishes we tend to use the lnb arm usually comes from the bottom so is "offset" and the lnb is not in the middle of the dish face, its "offset" to a position below the centre, that offset has a number of degrees attributed to it and is in its paperwork

your booklet details that the dish elevation figure is this 34 figure minus the dish angle, so if you had a dish with a 6 degree angle you subtract 6 from 34 , equals 28

the booklet is assuming a dish angle of say 6.8 so 34 minus 6.8 = 27.2

or another way to set it is to take your latitude from 60 , so 60 - 56 = 4 , then take 4 from the 34 listed in the booklet, which means setting the dish elevation on 30 ( 34 - 4 = 30 )

now if you take my triax TD110 dish, it has an offset of 26 degrees, which means the lnb is nowhere near the centre of the dish

its all about maths , trigonometry and angles etc , so I would not expect a beginner to understand it, but the info has to be provided in the specifications even if its for a professional installer to use, hence its supplied on the various paperwork with the items

in your case the simplest method is to set the motor bracket to latitude 56 degrees and the dish elevation to between 27.2 and 30, and adjust that dish elevation as you adjust everything to line it all up (but do not adjust that 56 degree motor bracket, as your latitude does not change unless you moved house)

so as mdt said, set the motor to 56 and the dish to 30 and then mess about until its all sorted, he kept it simple, but you are delving deeply into the theory and getting confused by it

[Boxbhoy]

Thanks for that. I wont delve too deeply in to it