What David and GN said. When I first started out, I did exactly this and was wondering why things were not moving the way they should. It is easy to accidentally interchange RA and DEC when connecting the cables and the Gemini 2 unit won't complain.I was just as convinced as you are that I had done it correctly.
Also wanted to share how good the pointing accuracy of the GM811G is; I use mine for imaging mostly, but used it for visual last week and for the first time used the GOTO functionality and model. I expected to have to synchronize with multiple stars, but no. Accurate polar alignment and synchronizing with a single star? put every other object I pointed to in the center of at least a low power eyepiece. Made things easy. This is the kind of performance you should expect. The nice thing is that Gemini modeling will only allow you to sync to a star that's sufficiently far from the meridian.
Would suggest doing a dry run in a well lit area or even indoors. You don't need it to be exact, but can assure yourself that the mount is at least moving in the direction it is supposed to.?
