Sorry for the delay in reporting back but, of course, it did snow! Because of the weather, I didn't get the job done until today.
As I'm "up north" I decided against the Sky "minidish", after reading the book, and ordered a 60cm dish instead. The book said it was OK to camouflage this with paint so I got some matt white primer and sprayed the dish, LNB and bracketry to match the house wall.
Did a test alignment on the ground using a satfinder meter. Actually got a picture on the Sky Digibox within 2 minutes, just with the dish propped up with bricks! I laid a clothes pole on the ground in line with the dish so I wouldn't need to mess with the compass again.
Climbed the ladder, drilled holes through the template and bolted the dish bracket to the wall. Adjusted the dish and "skewed" the LNB for best "signal quality" on the Digibox menu screen. Used white H109 double-shielded cable to match the wall. White cable clips and a white "cable tidy" grommet to hide the roughly drilled cable entry inside the living room.
All connected up and working within half an hour. I reckon I could have been at it for three days without the book!
The dish is fairly unobtrusive although the "minidish" would have been even better. But then I'd have had the risk of "signal dropout" in bad weather (and we get plenty of that here!)
Sam
