You might try locking in 101 or 97 for starters. If you have that white direcway dish, you will find that it is quite accurate on the numbers, that is, the elevation scale and such are usually very close to what all the 'dishpointing' sites will give you for your location and a given satellite. It's tedious to aim one, but once you're done, it is rock solid. Be sure to set the'skew' for the satellite you are aiming for. The Direcway dish sets skew by turning the entire dish=you will see the short bolts on the adjustment scale on the back of the dish.
As far as the firmware, if whatever you have is working now, it will probably work fine for fta. Those Viewsat boxes were usually hacked, but since Dish's encryption upgrade they are now being used for what they were advertised for-free to air signals. Not the most sensitive tuner in the VS but it works as well as many other similar receivers.