As I think of something I will add it. Check back again.

And here is a link to a similar helpful site with more ideas, specifically for USA users.
Satellite advice for USA users

More USA Bearings and dish sizes for Star Choice and Expressvu

Carribean Bearings for Expressvu

Mexico and Central America bearings for Expressvu

For a lightweight Tripod I used to use a cheap plastic camera tripod. Remove the Camera head, and replace with a 1 1/4 inch ABS PIPE, hose clamped to the center column. I glued a bubble level to the top of the ABS pipe and this gives me one less item to find, and setup is easier.. Adjust level bubble by adjusting leg length on tripod.

When that tripod got tired (plastic got brittle from sunlight) I found an old tripod support for camera lighting. It was steel and by shortening the centre pole I could fasten my ABS pipe from the old plastic tripod. All is still well, two years later. Another friend saw my arrangement and cut down a small projector screen base to accomplish the same idea.

I have two cables, 30 ft and 50 ft. Only once in North Maine woods did I need more to clear the trees and had to move to a different camp.

Use RG59 Coax if you are going to be moving often, RG6 if more permanent. RG59 will eventually pick up water and develop more losses than RG6, but is cheaper, easier to find and easier to work with. You can tell you are getting higher cable losses when the higher numbered transponders start losing signal strength. New coax should fix it or buy one of those inline satellite preamps from Radio Shack. Remember, it must be inserted out at the antenna to do any good.

Other Hints
* Change the dish elevation nuts to wing-nuts to make elevation adjustment easier.

* Keep the Pipe clamp slightly slack to allow slip fitting the head onto the Base. They do not really need to be tightened for camping setups when travelling with only short stops. But you then must be sure to allow extra elevation to compensate for the sag due to the offset weight of the dish . This is a fixed standard and is added directly to the calculated elevations. The standard house dish uses a line forward of the adjust bolt as a setting point, while the larger dishes use the bolt center line. Check your manual.

* I sometimes do not install the LNBF head bolt so I can store the LNBF separately. Just have a short 3' coax attached to the LNBF which I slip into the arm.

* The 3'junction provides a place to connect a Satfinder meter (available from Radio Shack). This Satfinder is a must have, to save setup time and a marriage. If you do not understand when you first read this, you soon will.

* Remove the Satfinder after setup to give you 5-8 more strength units.

* I use slip on connectors at both the meter joint and at the RV through wall plate to make connections even faster.

* It is also possible to drill out one of the spot welds on opposite sides of the LNB arm and insert a bolt, to make a folding arm. I used the lower one so that the dish and arm lay flat, face down, stretched out, when stored. Use the upper one if you want to fold the arm against the dish. I tried using remaining pair of spot welds as detents to hold the folding arm in the correct position when set up to receive. Eventually I drilled out this second detent and made a pin on a string to hold it in place. Either way works well.

* I use three plastic topped nail-like tent pegs from Canadian Tire to stake the tripod to the ground and keep the dish from toppling over in the wind. Hook them over or drill through the leg braces and hammer into the ground. Use Rocks in places with no soil like North Maine or Newfoundland. Screw anchors only work in some soil, and the bungee cords usually supplied are too stretchy in high winds.

* If you are having problems with tree branch or other interference, try sighting the beam. Kneel down and sight along either side of the dish arm, sighting a line from the bottom of the dish to the bottom of the LNBF (up 2-3"). This gives a very good approximation of the view which is offset upwards from what appears to be the dish centre. Sighting will make it easier to know where to move to miss a tree branch. We often use this trick to find that narrow hole in forest cover with the only view of the satellite. (Easier in South USA than Canada because of the higher angle.).

* If you want to try a temporary RV roof mount, use a piece of 1 1/4" ABS pipe and hose clamp it to your ladder so that it stands vertical when you are level. Pop the dish onto this pipe when parked ( preset at the correct elevation angle) and rotate to peak the signal. Lock in place securely because your wind exposure is much higher at rooftop.

* Don't plug into a phone line if you aren't at home. Big brother Bell is watching you. I found Star Choice to be more RV friendly.

*NEW INFORMATION

Expressvu has been given a used Dish satellite so that it can reorient antennas and now many channels are no longer available south of a line from Oregon to Atlanta. If you were counting on taking your expressvu south this year (2005) forget it. Better cancel and try Star Choice.

The following instructions are for receiving the remaining transponders which can be seen in south USA

Those dead in south USA are reported to be transponders 1.2,5.6,13,14,15 ,16,19,20, 27,28,29,30,31,32.

* I had received reports of 80% plus signal strength on Expressvu in Brownsville, Texas and Yuma, Arizona with the standard 18 inch dish. It is very, very fine tuning. Two degrees will loose signal completely. Make the mounting post vertical to simplify alignment. It is suggested that first, you rough set elevation a degree or two high. Then peak azimuth, followed by returning to peak elevation for best results. It seems Echostar wants to intrude, and it is easier to "sneak up on it " with a slightly higher than recommended elevation and then fine tune.

* There is also a substantially better signal here with transponder 01 than 31 or others. And ODD transponders are much stronger than EVEN. If you cannot find the correct satellite, try manually setting on transponder 01 and trying again. And with tuning so fine, you may find it more necessary to clamp the dish when completed to avoid movement in the wind.

The main Expressvu satellite is located over the equator, at 91 deg W. This is roughly south of a line between the west end of Lake Superior and Louisiana (Mississippi River).

There is another Expressvu satellite at 82W with mostly HDTV and not of much interest, but it is occasinally locked onto when setting up in a new location. Just swing slightly west and try again.

If you have accidentally locked and peaked onto Echostar US satellite, then set elevation about 8 degrees higher (in the east). Then look slightly to the left for another peak ( weaker than Echostar). In east Texas, the elevations of the two are almost equal. If you lock on Echostar here and really want Expressvu, turn up the sensitivity on the sat finder and shift left. And in the west where Echostar 110 is the higher, decrease your elevation angle, say 8 degreees, turn up the sensitivity, then shift left.

Echostar has a much stronger signal, uses the same frequencies and is also circularly polarized. It is extreemly easy to lock on it in error. Expressvu users can actually watch Echostar channel 200 (the welcome channel), but nothing else, as you do not have a contract with them.

Best way to not lock on Echostar is to PRESET ELEVATION (tilt) just above the calculated Elevation. Then you will not have a problem hitting Echostar by mistake. If elevation is correct, you will only hit Nimiq as you swing the antenna.

We use a small inverter to feed only the Satellite Box from 12 volt. Ours takes 1.85 amps from the 12 volt system. Unplug the inverter to turn satellite off, because the dish still draws 1.85 amp when it is turned off with the remote.

We have had reports of the signals being marginal in the Northern Bahamas on the even transponders using 18 inch dishes. Same report in Baja. This means that some programming is not available for part of the day ( eg Discovery and Radio Two) We are awaiting a report on the use of larger dishes to be tried at several locations.

The elliptical dish is tricky to tune, and if you can get an older round dish, it would have more gain and be much easier to store. With the elliptical dish the arm is removed simply with one bolt and can then be stored flat. There is no sense in wasting time trying to mount the star choice lnb on a rooftop dish designed for a DISH network type satellite. It won't work unless you can figure a way to reorient the arm to match the skew angle as well. I can't. Use a tripod and learn how to point manually.
(by the way, the satellite is located south of Tuscon, so the skew is almost zero in Arizona and it might just work there, Yuma or Quartzsite. Let me know.)

I again suggest purchasing a tuning meter to give you an idea of when you are close. The problem with sighting the satellite with Star Choice is the location of the two satellites straddles the much stronger Echostar satellite at 110 deg W. The primary Star Choice satellite is at 107.3W and the secondary is at 111.1W. The primary carries all the channels in the basic package and is the one you are interested in. When aligning use "options 6-3-1" for the tuning meter and "options 6-0-5-Screen C" will show the signal to noise ratio.
Star Choice Basic Package
STAR CHOICE USA LIST with skew

          And if you really want to contact me,
          figure out an address from
          the  web server and my call sign below.

         I do reply, just do not appreciate spam.