DishPointer AR Pro

I balked at the idea of paying 20 bucks for this app at first. Recently, my mother moved to a very rural area. She ordered a 200 channel package from a sat tv company. Installer comes out, slaps up the dish, and she can only get 6 channels-and marginally at best- he tells her to be glad for that, it was the only spot for signal. I went over with this app, and lo and behold, I found THREE spots to get both satellites she needed. I moved the dish and reset the elevation according to the app, and I got over three times the signal he got, and she now gets all her channels clearly, all the time!! Thanks for this app- it worked just as it says, and it really is cool to see where those satellites are in the sky! It's worth the money, that's for sure!

If your an installer and have an I phone this application is a must to have. For the price you can't go wrong. Perfect tool for anyone doing site surveys, or even for tailgaters on Sunday morning before the big game. Never thought I would spend this much for an application, but it should mean something when I went out and bought a new I phone at full price just so I could use this application. Keep up the good work!!!! Claude g

This program is a godsend for satellite installers and retailers! This program does what no $500+ satellite meter can do, just by aiming your iPhone to the sky you could instantly find out where the satellite arc is and also tell if the customer has a good line of site to the satellite.

As a broadcast professional, this app is invaluable. No more hauling the truck to site surveys, no small deal when the truck is a 36 ft, diesel guzzling, behemoth. Especially for local affiliate operators, who may not have as much experience locating more than a couple of birds, this app is worth its weight in gold. This is the easiest 20 bucks I've ever spent. Buy it, you won't regret it.

This app gives you the ability to see satellites hanging in the sky. Doing a site survey consists of nothing more than meandering around looking at the iPhone screen until no trees or buildings are in the way of the satellite. Problem locations that may have cost you an hour or more of time, or simply proved impractical, can be resolved in a couple of minutes.

This app is a good first release for doing site surveys for dish pointing and should grow to five stars with time. It is not just a simple compass. Instead, it uses the GPS to locate the user’s position on the earth, then works out the complex math of what direction a dish at that specific location must point in order to hit a particular satellite in geosynchronous orbit. Typical satellite TV receivers will also do that math upon the user entering their zip code, but there’s a significant drawback to that method: Modern TV satellite dishes “look” at multiple satellites at once. For example, Dish Network’s Dish 1000 “looks” at 110, 119, and 129 at the same time. You “aim” the dish in the middle (close to the position of satellite 119) in order to get each of the three receivers (LNBs) to end up pointing at their correct place in the sky. However, using an ordinary compass to see what’s in the way when you aim at 119.5 will not tell you if something is in the way of, for example, satellite 110. DishPointer Compass will let you find 110, 119, and 129 with ease. No powering up your receiver, no typing in zip codes, no trying to figure out how far off the figure given each of the satellites really is. The next task the user faces is figuring out if something like a tree or building is sticking up far enough to be in the way. If you’re in the middle of the desert, no problem: nothing is. If, however, you are in marginal conditions, something rampant in RV parks where for the last 50 years it was desirable to have as many trees as possible to provide shade, it can get complicated. Right now, the user has to carefully make note of each of the locations where the compass is pointing, then close DishPointer Compass and open DishPointer Line of Sight to compute the elevation to figure out if something is in the way. This is a significant drawback to the this first release, but the developer has pledged to add elevation to one of the next updates to this app. Just having the “intelligent” compass is enough of a win that I can recommend this app, given that a more complete solution is on the way.

This app gets input from the GPS, to establish your position on the earth, combines that with your compass position (the app requires the new iPhone 3G S), and computes where on the geosynchronous satellite arc the iPhone is pointing. It makes doing a site survey quite easy both for home-owners and installers. It's greatest effect, however, will be on the many RVers who have to aim their satellite dishes every week or even every day as they wander the world.