Tom Del Rosso wrote:
"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message


If you lose reception on a sattellite (3 LNB dish here) and tune to a
channel on that sat, the fun begins. The receiver immediately throws
up an error screen and refuses to pay attention to most button
pushes.

I've aligned point-to-point microwave dishes, but not satellite
dishes. The former work reliably in all weather, but they have AGC
voltage test points to find the peak signal for perfect alignment.
Do the residential satellite receivers have anything like that? I
suspect they're designed for installers who aren't equipped to
measure a voltage.

They have a "Sat Buddy" or something like that, no display just a speaker.
They hook it to the LNB and move the dish around. It beeps as they point
it. They basically seem to center it between the extremes that it loses
lock at. Pretty simple IMO. I'd prefer a meter of some kind, but it seems
to work alright. Surprisingly (or not) these guys know very little about
how any of this stuff works.

These most certainly don't work in all weather conditions. The kinds of
rains we have here in houston really seem to knock them out for a while
sometimes. But it can come down at rates of 8"/hour. I'm sure DM won't
believe that either.