Well I got to try this meter today for a real alignment. Due to spring freeze/thaw, summer tree trimming followed by haphazard alignment, then a wind storm that threw my whole system out of whack, I was in really bad shape alignment wise, so I took the new meter out today. At first, I got VERY confused, because it appeared that I was right on, with respect to my due south elevation, so I went to a western sat, and tried to adjust the mount on the pole, but I was having problems, in that when I'd adjust Ku, it would take me WAY off where
C-band was aligned. So it finally dawned on me that somehow my focal length had been knocked off. So I got up by the LNB, and tried to get the FL adjusted. After I did that, C-band and Ku were at the same place. ( Ie what happens is that if the FL is off, the sweet spot for Ku is more like a donut instead of a spot, and will be offset a bit.) Anyway, after adjusting the FL, I was getting pretty good reception on my westerly sats. But then I went back to my southerly sats, and was getting nothing. Ie last time I adjusted my due south elevation, I was using the Ku donut sweet spot, whereas the actual sweet spot should have been the center of the donut, or a minimum. So I re-adjusted the due south elevation. BINGO Best signals I've had for a long time. I'm sure I'm going to have to go back and fine tune the westerly sats again, but that should be a quick adjustment.
But the new meter was great. With the old
SF95 thing you'd have to make big changes before it would give a different signal, so you it was harder to peak the alignment. But the new meter is sensitive enough that I can barely touch the dish, and detect a change in the meter's response.
I still think that the SF95 is a very useful tool, but the Channel Master meter makes alignment much easier. It doesn't tell you what sat you are on, but that's seldom been a problem for me.