Ok, I think I may have figured out this thing and what I am doing wrong.
1) I am reading the wrong part of the RA circle. I should be reading the "inner" circle of numbers not the outer one.
2) When I go and set the RA circle on a star and then immediately point to another star, I am pushing the scope
in the wrong direction. That is, I am setting the RA circle on Sirius in the western sky, then swinging the scope LEFT to point it back at Acrux and checking the numbers which are then wrong. I should be rotating the scope "clockwise" when looking down on it (so that the open end points west, then at the ground then east to get back around to the eastern sky).
3) When I do set the scope at the beginning of the night (say at Regulus), I engage the RA motor (but I should then KEEP the RA motor ON and use the controller to fine tune the star in RA) What I am actually doing is setting the RA circle, swinging around to the
other side of the sky and then disengaging the RA motor while I line everything up and more often than not, forgetting to re-engage the drive again. When I mean other side of the sky, think of a tennis ball cut in half from North to South with the Western and Eastern halves as a result.)
What happens then is there is little spurts of NO synchronisation with the earth's rotation that all add up to more and more errors as the night goes on and I couldnt figure out where these were being induced.
In a nutshell, I CAN set the RA Circle on a known star at the beginning of the night and engage the RA drive motor to keep the RA circle in tune with the earth (and therefore sky), but when moving the scope, ONLY rotate it in a clockwise direction on the RA circle and all should be fine.
IF I want to swap sides between western and eastern "halves" I can disengage the drive, set the RA circle again (as a NEW starting/setting point) off a star in that half of the sky and then re-engage the drive motor. Undoing the bolts and making large slewing movements with the scope in RA will NOT affect the RA motor engagement of the drive as it only affects the slow motion RA cable for fine adjustment, and I can do that with the motor I have.
Phew! - Finally, the marbles all stopped rolling around in my head and all lined up and I had a spark of understanding. I hope this makes sense to Jen and anybody else who may be interested in this problem.
If not, please post a reply and I can see if I can summarise this more succinctly for you. (that means clearer and shorter)
Cheers
Chris