You may want to post a new thread in the beginners area. This will bring it to the attention of people better, most may think your question is about the article than your alignment problems.
Unfortunately, you are not in Melbourne or I might be able to have a look. One thing that I have done myself,
, on a couple of occasions is to plug the RA and Dec cables into the wrong sockets, have you checked these? The alignment goes absolutely nuts as you can imagine. My scope also goes nuts if the battery is almost flat, I doubt this is your problem though.