Pointing Your Dish at Eutelsat 36B From Anywhere in Australia
Eutelsat 36B sits at 36 degrees East, a geostationary slot that carries a strong mix of African, European and Middle Eastern broadcasts alongside transponder capacity that occasionally supports downlink traffic into the Asia-Pacific region. For Australian viewers and technicians, this satellite is rarely the first choice for free-to-air television, but it becomes highly relevant when you need to receive specific news feeds, religious programming or international channels that other orbital positions do not carry.
SatPointer makes the geometry of reaching 36.0°E far less intimidating than it sounds. The application combines Google Maps, an up-to-date satellite database and your selected installation point to calculate azimuth, elevation and polarisation angles in real time. You do not need to know your latitude and longitude by heart, and you do not need a printed table from the 1990s folded in a kitchen drawer.
What draws many users to the platform is that it works straight from a browser, so a field installer in a ute can pull it up on a phone, tablet or laptop without downloading anything. The dish alignment engine accepts any global address, postal code or GPS reading, then returns the precise compass bearing your LNB needs to face.
Because the service is web-based, you can also share the same alignment solution with a colleague on a remote site. This is particularly handy when a second pair of eyes is needed at the dish while someone else reads the numbers from inside the shed.
Getting familiar with the 36.0°E footprint
Before you climb onto the roof, it helps to understand what the Eutelsat 36B beam actually covers. The satellite operates Ku-band transponders aimed primarily at Africa and Europe, with a widebeam that reaches across to the western edge of Western Australia on a good day. Its signal strength diminishes considerably as you move further east across the country.
A typical reception in Perth or Broome will look very different from a Sydney or Brisbane install. The further east you travel, the lower the elevation angle becomes, and the more obstacles like trees, buildings and terrain start to interfere with the line of sight. A helpful background read on aligning dishes in tight urban environments explains why rooftop clutter in places like Surry Hills or Newtown can wipe out a marginal signal.
Most Australian users pursuing 36.0°E are doing so for one of three reasons: capturing international news for community broadcasting, receiving specific language services for migrant communities in Melbourne or western Sydney, or running a private data downlink for a remote operation.
Calculating angles with SatPointer
The first step is to open the SatPointer interface and enter your location. You can type a town like Alice Springs, drop a pin on the map, or share your device's GPS coordinates. Once the marker is in place, the application queries the satellite database and selects Eutelsat 36B from the list.
Below is a quick reference table showing approximate values for a handful of Australian cities. The numbers are illustrative only and will shift slightly depending on your exact address.
| City | Azimuth | Elevation | LNB Skew |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perth | 289° | 12° | -23° |
| Adelaide | 275° | 9° | -19° |
| Melbourne | 271° | 7° | -16° |
| Sydney | 269° | 6° | -14° |
| Brisbane | 267° | 5° | -12° |
| Broome | 295° | 15° | -25° |
| Hobart | 272° | 8° | -17° |
These figures tell you roughly where to swing the dish and how to rotate the LNB. Elevation is the angle above the horizon, azimuth is the compass bearing, and skew accounts for the polarisation offset caused by the curvature of the Earth between you and the satellite.
Once the app shows your specific numbers, the same screen can generate an embeddable widget that installers put on their own business website. The SatPointer network page lists partner sites already using the widget, which is a good way to see how the tool behaves on mobile and desktop at the same time.
Walking through a real alignment
Start by physically mounting the dish in a stable position. A wobbly mount will undo even the most accurate calculations. In Australia, you often install on Colorbond roofs, on a wall bracket, or on a ground-mounted pole set in concrete, and each behaves differently in wind.
Next, set the elevation first. Loosen the elevation bolts on the mount, tilt the dish to the figure shown on screen, then gently snug the bolts. After that, rotate the entire dish for azimuth using a compass or, better still, a phone-based magnetic sensor that has been calibrated away from metal.
Connect a satellite meter or a set-top box with a signal screen to the LNB output. Slowly sweep the dish left and right by a degree or two at a time. The signal should peak at the calculated azimuth, although local magnetic anomalies in places like the Pilbara or around heavy steel structures in Perth CBD can shift the reading by several degrees.
Fine-tune the elevation and skew once you have a peak. Skew is the easiest to overlook, especially for circular polarisation feeds, and getting it wrong can leave you chasing your tail with a weak signal. The polar pass planning article explains how the same geometry applies to LEO tracking, which is useful if you later expand into mobile satellite services.
Australian conditions that affect reception
The continent throws up some unique challenges for satellite installers. Heat shimmer over the red dirt of the outback can blur the signal on summer afternoons, particularly when the dish is pointed low on the horizon towards the west. Humidity along the Queensland coast introduces rain fade, and the build-up season from November to March can knock several decibels off a marginal link.
Local terminology helps when you are chatting with property owners. Australians often refer to the backyard as the "backyard" rather than the garden, call a hardware store a "servo" for the smaller ones or simply "Bunnings" for the big-box version, and might ask you to put the dish on the "shed" rather than the garage. Knowing the lingo builds trust and prevents misunderstandings during a site survey.
Regional rules matter too. In heritage zones around The Rocks in Sydney or parts of inner Melbourne, mounted dishes can require council approval, and strata committees in apartment blocks often reject anything larger than 80cm. Mining camps in the Pilbara and remote stations in the Kimberley, on the other hand, routinely install 1.8m dishes for commercial and staff welfare services.
Wildlife is another factor. Currawongs and cockatoos have been known to peck at LNB caps, and kangaroos occasionally walk into ground-mounted poles. A small mesh guard over the feedhorn and a concrete base for the pole save a lot of return trips.
Tools and resources for getting the best result
A few pieces of kit make the difference between a five-minute job and an afternoon of frustration. Carrying a digital inclinometer on the elevation bolt removes a lot of guesswork, especially when the printed scale on the mount has faded from years of UV exposure.
If you are scripting or automating installs at scale, take a look at how Tube Textify handles YouTube transcripts for a sense of how a small utility can lift productivity. The same mindset applies when you build a checklist of alignment steps that runs every time you arrive on site.
It is also worth keeping an eye on policy shifts that affect online tools, since developers often need to track how mandatory app domain extensions might eventually apply to web-based utilities. Even though SatPointer runs in a browser today, knowing the broader compliance landscape helps you plan long-term workflows.
The right accessories make the difference between a reliable install and a callback. Useful items to keep in the work vehicle include:
- A magnetic mount compass for quick azimuth checks when metal is nowhere nearby
- A small HDMI monitor with a built-in satellite tuner for field signal readings
- Weatherproof self-amalgamating tape for LNB and connector joints
- Spare F-type connectors and a quality crimp tool
- A spirit level to confirm the mount pole is plumb before final aiming
A short checklist you can print or save on your phone is equally handy for the smaller jobs. Run through these items at every site:
- Confirm clear line of sight to the west for west-facing slots like 36.0°E
- Verify the mount pole is perfectly vertical with a spirit level
- Pre-set elevation and skew on the ground before lifting the dish
- Sweep azimuth slowly and watch for the first signal lock
- Peak elevation, then skew, then re-peak azimuth for a clean result
Where 36.0°E fits in the bigger picture
For most Australian households, Eutelsat 36B sits behind more popular slots like Optus D2 at 152°E or the various Hispasat positions, but it earns its place in the toolkit. Community broadcasters in western Sydney serving the large African diaspora occasionally feed content via 36.0°E, and some international news organisations use it as a redundant path when terrestrial circuits drop out.
Mining operations in the Northern Territory have also started using the satellite for backhaul into site offices, particularly where fibre is unavailable and the budget will not stretch to a full VSAT contract on a Pacific beam. The 1.2m dishes commonly found on these sites can lock onto 36.0°E with a margin of a few decibels, which is enough for video calls and remote monitoring.
For hobbyists, chasing 36.0°E is a fun project that teaches the same skills needed for any exotic orbital slot. Once you have aligned a dish to a marginal signal from across the planet, the more common Australian satellites feel straightforward in comparison.
Ready to get started? Open SatPointer on your phone, drop a pin on your property and pick Eutelsat 36B from the satellite list. The app will give you the exact angles, and the rest comes down to a steady hand, a good signal meter and a clear view of the western horizon.