My wife has an Iphone 5. I went to the app page and downloaded a satellite finder app by Norstar. It's free. Run the app and point the phone at the sky and it shows the location of all the satellites as well as azimuth and elevation. It makes it very easy to see where you can put the dish. We have Directv HD at the house. I was trying to figure out how to get a SD receiver to use in the trailer with the Direct TV standard dish. After lots of hair-pulling I finally called Directv and they sent me a SD receiver (RV doesn't have a HD TV) to use with the standard dish, costs me $6/month on my house bill. Cheap enough and the whole setup stays in the trailer, no moving back and forth and reprogramming the remote for the different TV's.
On my initial setup I could get it working until I found the satellite locator app and discovered what I thought was the correct place was wrong and the satellite I wanted was behind a tree.
Took it out last weekend and had a clear shot to the south. Set up dish and pointed it at the satellite and adjusted using the inline signal meter after the phone showed me where the satellite was. Went inside and checked the receiver, 86% and a perfect picture. Total elapsed time for my second time setup; appx 10 minutes. Probably a few minutes more than the setup time for the automatic deal considering running coax has to be done for both as well as making sure there is a clear path to the satellite.
The tripod setup was $90 with shipping vs ~$650 for the automatic. Same receiver either way. Nobrainer for me.
Clif & Millie
2009 Ford F350 SRW CC Lariat 6.4 Diesel
2015 Heartland Cyclone HD CY3418 Toy Hauler