Advice Needed Zeroing a motor - Does it matter?

[Chris91]

So should I be finding 0.8W with the motor firmly at dead centre? I have been telling my motor to go to 0.8W (using my "receiver"), then finding it by rotating my set up around the pole.

 

[ozumo]

No, with USALS, sending the motor to 0.8W should move the motor to the correct position for 0.8W. It would only be absolute zero if your longitude is 0.8W.

 

[Chris91]

Right OK well that's how I did it. That guide that was linked sounded to me like I was meant to keep the motor at 0 when finding the south most sat. In my case that seems to be 0.8W

 

[Gladstones]

whats the signal level on thor

 

[Manikm909]

Once motor is zero'd but not aligned. You need to send motor to 0.8/ 1w using receiver this moves the motor fractionally . From there u need to move assembly on pole around to find signal

 

[Chris91]

Sorry for the late reply.

What actually happened:
I lost some of the (I assume) weaker channels a few months back.
I went out to fiddle with the dish and made it worse... I lost a lot of sats completely.
I went out and completely re aligned everything from scratch and lost everything.
After much messing around, it turns out the coax from the dish to the motor had a break in it, or a bad connection, which explains why I lost a lot of sats, then all of them.

Right now I am back to where I was before I decided to start messing with the dish, without some of the weaker channels.
I still plan to go back out and fine tune the dish using the leverage suggestion that was made.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[ozumo]

Some options to consider:

1) A different or new LNB.
2) Connect the LNB directly to the receiver bypassing the motor to see if there is any improvement.
3) Take the dish off the motor and set it up as a fixed dish on the satellites you're having issues with. At least then you'll know if it is a motor alignment issue or something else.