>> when attempting to track Orion last night it keeps giving error message ' ABORT TRACKING telescope points below the horizon'
One sanity check is to slew the mount close to the Meridian. Does the RA show the approximate local sidereal time? You can do this test even in the daytime or under clouds. If the RA is wrong, your mount does not think it is pointed to the correct location. Even better, slew the OTA to the Zenith (using levels) -- the RA should read the local sidereal time, and the DEC should read your latitude.
The usual way to keep the coordinate system in sync is to always start with the mount's processor thinking it is pointed at home, and with the OTA also pointed to home, and never unlock the clutch from that point on. Move the mount (for example, to do polar alignment) by only using the direction buttons.
If the local sidereal time on the mount is OK, try asking the hand controller to home the mount after polar alignment. If the pointing is really way off, this step may crash the OTA into the tripod. Therefore, to be safe, release the clutch before asking the mount to home itself, and when the mount has finished homing, manually point the OTA approximately at the home position, then tighten the clutches again.
Good luck,
Chen
