Research Concepts RC2000C - Manual (Page 48)

40 RC2000C Az/El Tracking Antenna Controller Chapter 4 Inclined Orbit Satellites
Research Concepts, Inc. • 5420 Martindale Road • Shawnee, Kansas • 66218-9680 • USA www.researchconcepts.com
It is usually best to choose an antenna mount that uses longer linear actuators, because the 'sides of
the triangle' formed by the mount and the linear actuator are longer. With longer sides of the triangle,
looseness in the linear actuator translates into smaller antenna pointing angle variation.
See section 7.3 - Troubleshooting for more track related errors.
4.5 Inclined Orbit Satellite Setup Checklist
1. Connect the AGC output from the satellite receiver to one of the controller AGC input channels.
Determine the AGC Polarity. Enter the polarity into the controller via CONFIG mode.
2. Adjust the GAIN and OFFSET pots for the selected AGC channel so that when the antenna is
aligned with a strong satellite the signal strength level is around 650, and when the antenna is well
off of any satellite the signal strength level is around 75.
3. Determine the values for the AGC C Band Threshold and/or the AGC K/L Band Threshold,
depending on which frequency bands are used. The threshold values are used to determine
whether or not a satellite signal is present.
4. With the antenna positioned well away from any satellite, tune the satellite receiver across all
transponders to verify that the noise floor is below the threshold.
5. Determine the elevation scale factor. Determine the number of 'position counts per degree' and
multiply this value by 57.29 to get the value for the Elev Constant CONFIG mode item. Note that
the RC2000 counts both the rising and falling edges of each position pulse.
6. With the antenna aligned with a strong satellite tune the satellite receiver across all bands, and
verify that the signal strength level does not reach saturation and remains above the threshold.
7. Enter in the data for the following via CONFIG mode: Antenna Latitude and Longitude, the Time
and Date, and the Antenna Size (in centimeters). Note - once the time is set and the controller is
tracking, do not change the time (i.e. Standard to Daylight Savings), as this will invalidate the data
in the track table.
8. Go to SETUP mode and program in an inclined orbit satellite. As a test of the search algorithm, the
user can go to AUTO mode and select the inclined orbit satellite from the list of satellites
programmed into non-volatile memory. The controller should then perform a search. When the
search is complete, if the satellite is found, step tracking will resume. An automatic search will only
be performed if the Search Enable CONFIG mode items is set to 1.