Polar Mount Confusion

michael01707

I have recently bought a second hand Channel Master 1.2m dish with polar mount. I spent nearly the whole of yesterday trying to set it up to see all possible satellites on the arc but could only get the strongest satellites such as Hotbird, Astra 1 and Thor with about 93/ 94 % signal strength. My main confusion is setting the latitude on the polar mount. My latitude is 51.66 so I would look to set it roughly between 51 and 52 on the two settings on the polar mount. However looking at these threads confuses me:

channel master 1.2 setup help

Help needed on Channel Master 1.2 dish


Should I just be setting my latitude at 52 on both settings and if so should it be set with the top or bottom lip for declination. I believe that the other setting should be set at the top of the nut. What difference does the offset angle of 22.6 make, or can I just ignore this if I use my latitude?

I've included pictures of the two adjustments. Part of one of the scales is missing, I've measured and scratched in where markings should have been.

Thanks in advance.

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Robbo

Hi, I don't have one of those, but it is clear from the diagrams etc that the adjustment shown in your picture on the right is to be set to you latitude. As that is the one that sets the axis of rotation for the antenna, which needs to be aligned to the earths polar axis.

The adjustment shown in your left picture is for the declination. For my H-H mount I have always adjusted that by finding the best signal on my nearest due south, presumably you can do the same with the polar mount.

Robbo

rolfw

Here's a page from the manual.

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michael01707

Thank you Robbo and Rolf.

I've read that in another thread that the manual is wrong when it comes to where you should read the declination on the scale from but I will do as Robbo suggested and set my latitude to between 51 and 52 and then set the declination to the best signal on Thor. Hopefully this will in some way be around 51 / 52 on the declination scale but if not, I won't care if I can receive all the possible satellites on the arc. I will let you know how I get on.

rolfw

I would be very surprised if the manual was wrong, the jpeg I attached has just been scanned from an original out of my brand new boxed mount.

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Robbo

Is there any other way of tilting the dish up and down? Or does that mounting plate go straight on to the back of the dish, with nothing else that can be swivelled.

rolfw

It mounts straight onto the dish face, see full manual http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellit...-new-post.html

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Burnham Beech

This is for information & interest only - set declination by fine tuning as mentioned above.

The manual is definitely wrong on declination on my CM mount (are there different versions?). The example in the manual shows a setting for 32° Latitude - in fact at that setting it's nearer to 48° latitude. That equates to the notch in the top plate, not its furthest extremity.

michael01707

Update: I made my own scale and set the latitude to 52. The declination was nearer to 60 to get the best signal on Thor. I managed to get a signal on all the West satellites up to 30w including all the 7w verticals and the slightest glimmer of 2 horizontals . I didn't try all the East satellites but I got 94% on 39e and around 75% signal on 42e which I thought was quite low. I would like to tinker with the latitude to get the best signal on 7w and 42E. Should I go back to Thor and do this or make adjustments at the other satellites?

Burnham Beech

If you can get something on the 7°w horizontals you are spot on (or almost spot on) for 7°w, so be careful from now on.

To test your alignment to the east check Space TV Azerbaijan on 40°e - 11159v 3333-3/4. If you can get a clean video on that your alignment should be ok.

Then go back to 7°w and check those horizontals at 3pm on a dull day.

Gerry55

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