As one who has installed a lot of dishes over the past 10 years, including DirecTV, Dish and Vsat, and one trained as a mechanical engineer, I would say that how one assembles a dish is very important.
Distortion of the assembly usually occurs, when the dish is just haphazardly installed in any old order and the bolts are just tightened randomly.
First, tighten the nuts on the bolts for the tilt and the elevation to get the most precise settings.
Assemble the dish on the pole, and thighten the vertical mounting nuts tight enough to take up the vertical wobble, but not so tight as to keep the dish from swinging on the horizintal arc with some pressure.
Tighten the second elevation nut on the side without the graduated protractor. Then, tighten the tilt adjustment nuts not marked with the adjustment protractor.
Set up the receiver with the signal strength screen. Peak the signal for 119.
After the highest signal strengths have been found, lock the pole mounting nuts tight.
Loosen the elevation nuts and ajust the elevation up and down to achieve the highest signal strength at 119. 110 will automatically come in, as well as 129 with a Dish1000.
Like torquing the heads on a car engine, the assembly technique based on the stress analysis is important.
The BirDog does not work well with the newer DishPro plus lnbs. Use either a legacy dual at 110 or a legacy or standard DishPro twin. After locking the satellites, replace the lnb with the final one and do another check switch.
I'm still using an old Digisat II with good results, although I have a lot of advances meters.
