Can somebody please enlighten me on the mystique of satellite dishes. As a motor-caravanner I carry a portable satellite dish for use on a tripod and lacking the funds for a posh auto-seeking device find that it can sometimes take up to an hour to locate Astra 28 with its bounty of BBC programmes.  I'm talking about a 1m dish here. Often a few trees swill be all that prevent me from getting a reliable picture and sound.   So how is it that whilst walking at Portland, Dorset, today I saw lots of small dishes on the walls of ex Navy houses apparently pointing at a mountain of portland stone...how on earth does the signal penetrate Portland's rock?   And whilst I'm at it, are those little square and diamond shaped "dishes" as effective as concave dishes?   Your experiences and knowledge welcomed. David France, Blandford.  

Off-set satellite dishes (like a "Sky" dish), don't actually point in the direction from where the signal comes. A "Prime focus" dish does.

So a "Sky" dish apparently pointing at a brick wall, is actually pointing above the wall.

It is possible to purchase 'flat' dishes but where you are in France, a very modest conventional, off-set dsh is best. It'd be cheaper as well.

As regards a small dish and motor-caravanning, we used to do that. I can suggest a modest alignment meter (about ten pounds) will aid setting up. It's inserted into the LNB cable. Be aware that there is a myriad of satellites 'up there' and so the meter cannot differentiate between 'birds' so it's easy to be confused by "Hotbird" at 13º, Astra 1 at 19º, and Astra 2 at 28.2º. A SKY box alone isn't a satisfactory way of doing it.

The article is a bit out of date.

There is no mention of "Freesat" (the BBC / ITV facility, not to be confused by "freesatfromsky"), and it is possible to get "five" on a SKY box without a card.

"Squarials" (the old BSB antenna) had a different sort of polarisation. It is possible to buy small dishes (as used by SKY installers) for a very modest price.

The further away from the UK, the weaker certain UK TV channels become.

On a different tangent, does anyone know the timeline of sky dishes?
I bought a Humax Foxsat HD PVR and needed to add a Quad LNB to get the second feed the box requires.  

Advice was that currently available Quad LNBs only fit mark 2 onward dishes.  I have no idea what mark my old dish was and there is no help in finding out on the internet.  A year when each mark dish was first supplied would have helped!   The current mark 4 dish was first supplied in June 2009, for example.

As it was I played safe and bought a brand new Mark 4 dish with Quad LNB!

Richard