Following on from this thread Mark put together (Dummies/Satellite), I'm happy to say that he and I have colluded on another project - Going Motorised.

The basic setup is similar to the Dummies' guide....I'll try to point out the things to note:

• your dish needs to be mounted on a pole that's perfectly vertical. Perfectly being the key word here.
• default position you should align your motor (and dish) with its ZERO on is magnetic south. You also need to tell your receiver that you're at 8e (and about 47n) so that it can calculate itself where to point. You deffo need a COMPASS.
• in theory if you get your motor/dish at south then things might work. You need to tell your receiver that a motor is attached and to move to locations for satellites....

That is the theory; both Mark and I had some funny results so I'll lay them out here:

• the motor did not move at all/as expected!
• having a signal meter is a good idea ()
• disabling gotoX (ie. USALS) and storing locations seems to have worked (for me)
• walking your dish to a location you see for a certain satellite and storing it seems more reliable
• when walking it step-by-step, you see Bit Error Rates drop when you get to your "destination" - consider walking through the main beam a little (as I missed some 28e channels by being satisfied too quickly!)
• PC Systems don't typically deliver enough power to drive a motor (shame that)
• different receivers seem to get different behaviour ()

I am proud to say I have now 28/23/19/16/13/7 east stored in my Dreambox. It's been painstaking and I've changed how I will set things up for now but it's quite rewarding.

I'll pop up some pictures of my creation in the next few days too.

Anyone else been through the same experience - or considering it?