Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding the controls again. What I mean is, I wind the "elevation" thing forward, and the yellow line doesn't seem to move any further out. When I wind it back, it moves further in.
Yeah generally 45 degrees is your maximum distance. If you want to fire closer then you increase elevation. You generally don't want to reduce elevation below 45 degrees because it's harder to hit targets precisely. The game starts you at 45 degrees by default with 1 charge so your default maximum range is 1km.