Finally, there is an update to the Sky/Freesat alignment calculator which helped you so far installing or setting up your satellite dish. Not only can you now enter your address, postcode, city or geocode for any location on earth but you can also choose the satellite you wish to point to, making this version of the satellite alignment calculator a global tool (you can now use it in e.g. Spain, France, USA to find Hotbird, Astra 1, DirecTV etc.)

But the coolest thing is that it will show you on a close-up satellite image on which wall to fix your satellite dish and where to point it! Just try it out!

For the UK, only the first part of the postcode is considered, the second part disregarded. So don’t be suprised when the marker is a few miles away from your home. But you can click and drag the marker.

Elevation is measured from the horizon upwards. If it gives a negative value then the satellite is below the horizon, i.e. it’s physically not possible to receive that satellite.
Azimuth is positive clockwise and measured from True North. If (and only when) using a compass, you will need to adjust the azimuth by the magnetic variation for your location.
LNB skew is positve anti-clockwise when facing the dish and is a theoretical value, in practice it may differ (e.g. for Sky UK add 7.5°).

I’ve tested the virtual satellite image alignment on a few real installations and must say that the accuracy is amazing.

Here’s how to use it:
Choose a satellite (default is Sky UK), enter your location and hit go. If it has found your location correctly, zoom in closer and then switch to the satellite map view. Then click and drag the icon where you want to install your dish. The blue line will show you the direction in which you need to point the dish.

You will need a fast internet connection such as T1, ADSL, cable broadband or satellite broadband as the tool downloads about 1MB of satellite images. I’d recommend a minimum download speed of 1Mbps. If you don’t have broadband and are on a dial-up, you can still use the old calculator.

Update 21.08.07: I’ve added the elevation and LNB skew calculation results just underneath the map. These are calculated and displayed in real time as soon as you move the marker or change the satellite. The old calculator should be really obsolete now.

Update 05.09.07: Within two weeks, the calculator has been used about 40,000 times making this one of the fastest growing satellite tools ever. That’s why I decided to place the calculator on a single, separate site called www.dishpointer.com. The calculator will be available on both sites with the same versions (I’m going to keep only Dishpointer.com up-to-date) but I believe the dishpointer.com site will be more suitable for non-UK visitors. There will be also various language versions of this tool on the dishpointer.com site, so if you feel you could help me out with translating a few lines of text into any language, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

If you don’t speak another language but still want to contribute, then please spread the word, buy from the partner-shops or make a small donation (see paypal button on the right - remember, calling a Sky installer to re-align a dish costs £70, and no amount is too small to be donated here).

Update: Latest version with many new features on www.dishpointer.com

Click here if the video doesn’t show.

These satellite finders are really useful little helpers when it comes down to perfectly aligning a satellite dish.

In this YouTube video we can see how sensitive the meter is. This sensitivity allows finding the sweet spot of the satellite dish. Here, we’ve got already a perfectly aligned dish, the meter is at the maximum. Even the slightest movement of the dish to either side of the perfect alignment reduces the signal level (and audio tone) of the meter. You can see that once the fine-tuning is finished, the signal level is again at the maximum.

Some people are trying to align their satellite dishes with the on-screen digibox signal bar which is way too slow, inaccurate and not sensitive enough for a good alignment. Save yourself the hassle and get one of these satellite finders - the prices dropped down to almost 5 quid (they were 40 quid 5 years ago).

For more detailed instructions, see the perfect satellite dish aligment how to guide.

Ready for the start of the Barclays Premier League, Sky has announced two new initiatives to bring more sports action to mobile phones:

24-7 Football
Sky, The Sun and News of the world have launched the website 24-7football.co.uk with an on-demand service for mobiles to view video clips of football goals as they happen, and highlights after the whistle from every Barclays Premier League and UEFA Champions League game.

The service is available for a monthly subscription of %5 or on a pay per view basis (50p for a video clip). Users don’t need to have a Sky TV subscription to access the clips and they are available on all major mobile networks.

Sky Mobile TV
Sky Sports 1, 2 and 3 will be available on Sky Mobile TV from 11 August. Sky Sports Xtra will be added in the coming weeks. These new mobile channels will stream all of Sky Sports’ 92 live Barclays Premier League games and live matches from every round of the UEFA Champions League, as well as Coca-Cola Football League, Carling Cup, FA Cup and Euro 2008 Qualifiers. Not to mention live coverage of International and Domestic cricket, European Tour Golf and Guinness Premiership Rugby.

Sky does not charge at the moment to access the service but the mobile operators will charge for the data downloaded, so you better check your tariff before using Sky Mobile TV.

The Bourne Ultimatum starring Matt Damon tops the US Cinema Charts in its first weekend taking in $70.2 million and pushing The Simpsons Movie to the second place. The first two movies in the Bourne series took only $27.1 million and $50.5 million in the opening weekends, thus making the third one the most successful movie so far. But not only that, it is also the most successful movie ever released in August.
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Virgin Media and five other firms pulled their ads from the social-networking site facebook after the ads appeared on the facebook site of the British Nationalist Party (BNP). The firms have no control on where the rotating ads appear. To avoid a negative image by being associated with the political party, they decided to pull the ads alltogether.

With the football season starting soon, the question is where and how to watch the games. The BBC tries to answer this question in a pretty good article, listing all the available options including BBC, BT, Club Channels & Websites, Five, ITV, Setanta Sports, Sky Sports, and Virgin Media.

Here is the full article.

I read in the FT today, that Murdoch is buying Sir Alan Sugar’s company Amstrad for £125m. Just as background information, Amstrad was founded by Sir Alan M Sugar (AMS - Trading = > AMSTRAD) in 1968 and is producing home electronics including satellite receivers. Alan Sugar who reached fame in the BBC TV show “The Apprentice” is believed to be one of the richest men in Britain.

I guess this means, that Sky will try to install more and more Amstrad Digiboxes from now on.

With moving to a new server, I’m also updating the layout of the site. This will be an ongoing process till I’m happy with everything, so don’t get confused when things change a lot. If you have any comments or themes you’d like to suggest, let me know.

We have converted our satellite setup calculator into an online-tool, which will calculate the azimuth, elevation and LNB tilt/skew for Sky digital based on your postcode. This will provide you with all the data you need to quickly setup or re-align your dish but if you want a standalone software there is a selection of freeware available, too.

A very good satellite dish data calculator is SMWLink. It calculates the azimuth, elevation, skew, gain, etc. It's free and might become useful when you don't have internet access to use the calculator on our site. There is even a PocketPC version of the software out now.

The dish data calculators usually don't take the magnetic variations (true North, true South) into account. These variations can be calculated using the free tool from Pangolin Comms.

In order to use any of the dish data or magnetic variation calculators, you need to know the longitude and latitude of your position. For UK locations, you can obtain them from www.streetmap.co.uk, and for almost any other location in the world from www.heavens-above.com.

Setting up your system to receive a UK satellite signal from Spain, France or anywhere in southern Europe through your Sky Digibox isn’t a problem. All you need to do is change a few settings.

Programmes on the Astra 2 cluster of satellites are 'beamed' down to create three footprints: North, South and UK. All of the Free To Air and Sky programmes are received within these footprints. An up-to-date list of programmes that are available on each footprint can be obtained from www.ses-astra.com

In the UK, you should be within all three of the footprints, and with the right equipment, you should not have any problems receiving all of the Astra transponders. Outside of the UK, problems of reception and dish alignment can occur. The default frequency of the Sky Digibox is set to a transponder on the North beam. If you travel southwards and move out of the North footprint, you may need to change the default transponder of the Digibox to match the South beam.

To change the default transponder setting, you will first need to access the hidden INSTALLERS SETUP menu. First press the SERVICES button on your Sky remote and then '4' to access SYSTEM SETUP.

Although it is not displayed, you will need to press '0' then '1' then SELECT to access the INSTALLERS SETUP menu, then select '2' to enter DEFAULT TRANSPONDER.

The following display will then show:

Select 'Frequency (GHz)'. By typing in the relevant numbers, change the settings from 11.778 to 12.129. When the changes have been made, select 'Save New Settings'. Press BACK UP to return to main screen.