Satellite Dish Pointing with Google Maps

[AlanSH]

Hi,

I've created a new tool which allows to see where to point the satellite dish on an actual close-up image of your location using a Google Maps Mashup. I believe this will be of help to many people and that's why I'm posting it here:
DishPointer.com - Easy Satellite Dish Pointing

The accuracy of this tool is amazing. If Google maps has a high-resolution satellite image of your house then you can exactly place dish marker on the actual location. BTW, the marker is draggable!

Would be great if you could try it out and post your comments here.

 

[RandallA]

Very nice and it looks accurate to me.

 

[AlanSH]

Thank you. And sorry about all the Google Ads on that page, will sort it out in the next few days - have been playing around alot with the design today.

 

[RandallA]

This tool just confirmed to me that I cannot get 61.5 from where my other dishes are. But if I move it to where I thought it would work, it looks like I do have a shot at it.

Agains thanks for the tool.

 

[VinceT3]

very cool

 

[digiblur]

Keeps saying location not found here no matter what location I put in.

 

[AlanSH]

Keeps saying location not found here no matter what location I put in.

keep it simple, put postcode or streetname with house number and city and country in. Alternatively, put geocodes in. I guess you are putting some sort of string in which it doesn't recognize, e.g. abbrev. of a city or or a misspelling of the street/cityname.

 

[levibluewa]

118.75

Is it missing since it's next door to 119?

 

[digiblur]

keep it simple, put postcode or streetname with house number and city and country in. Alternatively, put geocodes in. I guess you are putting some sort of string in which it doesn't recognize, e.g. abbrev. of a city or or a misspelling of the street/cityname.

I even tried your example that is pre-populated.

 

[tomeckle]

Great Tool

Thanks for creating it. allowed me to adjust the pointing of my dishes...

 

[RandallA]

I even tried your example that is pre-populated.

That's odd, it's working for me. Now I know exactly where I need to aim my dish for 61.5 at my location. It's in between two trees so I'm not even gonna try and I just went up there with my compass and the trees are there.

 

[jhedy]

Copy is like creation.

UKSatelliteHelp.co.uk » Satellite Dish Alignment / Setup Calculator 2.0

 

[Hall]

UKSatelliteHelp.co.uk » Satellite Dish Alignment / Setup Calculator 2.0

Did you by chance notice who made the UK page ?? A guy named "Alan" too....

 

[JayPSU]

Wow! Excellent tool. Shows me why I'm having a problem with just the 110 satellite. While the 129 and 119 are right in the break between my trees, the 110 is closer to the left side of that break and almost into the tree, thus the weaker signal from 110. Truly great stuff, thanks for posting this. Well, I either deal with a weaker 110 signal, or I "accidentally" chop the neighbor's tree down!

 

[harshness]

Would be great if you could try it out and post your comments here.

You need to note that the azimuth is based on True North. Figuring magnetic declination would be a big help for those not familiar with how a conventional compass works. Other sites use a rather poor approximation for the declination and I'm guessing that Google doesn't provide this in their toolbox.

 

[papalittle]

I tried it for my location and it did point in the right direction but the skew is for Direct and not dish..

 

[papalittle]

The Wild Blue settings are right on though.

 

[LER]

Looks great, but the sat picture for my house is before it existed.

 

[AlanSH]

Is it missing since it's next door to 119?

118.75 is missing because it's not listed here.

Do I need to put that in, what's on it?

 

[AlanSH]

UKSatelliteHelp.co.uk » Satellite Dish Alignment / Setup Calculator 2.0

That's my blog but since it's a UK blog and the calculator is a global and unique tool, I decided to put the calculator on a separate site. But thanks for noticing and pointing it out.

You need to note that the azimuth is based on True North. Figuring magnetic declination would be a big help for those not familiar with how a conventional compass works. Other sites use a rather poor approximation for the declination and I'm guessing that Google doesn't provide this in their toolbox.

You are right that the azimuth and the blue line are based on True North but that's what's needed for drawing the blue line - the magnetic declination would be wrong for drawing the line but right when using a compass. I ought to put a small note saying to account for magnetic variations when using a compass, thanks...

I tried it for my location and it did point in the right direction but the skew is for Direct and not dish..

The skew is the calculated value for the satellite. Some satellites do preset the skew though so that the calculated value differs from the real one - in the next version I will account for that.

I even tried your example that is pre-populated.

That's so weird!! The address lookup is all provided by google so it should be the same for everyone - can you tell me what browser you are using? This is the first time I hear about that and I already had 30,000 users in the last two weeks.