to use SatPointer for a remote site survey using GPS coordinates
A remote site survey in Australia often starts with nothing more than a set of GPS coordinates sent over email from a station manager, a mining camp superintendent, or a community organisation hundreds of kilometres from the nearest telecommunications technician. SatPointer turns those numbers into a clear dish pointing plan within a few clicks, which is exactly what you need when the road in is dirt, the nearest hardware store is a full day's drive, and the install window is tied to a mustering season or a fly-in roster.
The tool combines Google Maps with up-to-date orbital data, so once you paste the latitude and longitude into the location field the overlay shows the satellite arcs above that exact spot. You can pick the bird you want to align with, read off the azimuth, elevation and skew, and even check the suggested dish size from the beam chart before anyone has left the depot.
| Site type | Coordinates source | Satellite suggested by beam data | Suggested dish size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pastoral station homestead | Driveway GPS, Google Maps | Optus 10 / Sky Muster | 1.2 m Ku |
| Open-cut mine camp | Survey-grade handheld GPS | Optus C1 / Intelsat 22 | 2.4 m C-band or 1.8 m Ku |
| Indigenous community VAST | Government-supplied co-ordinates | Optus 10 VAST beam | 1.8 m Ku |
| SNG truck at a sports oval | Phone GPS in clear view | Optus / NewsSkies Ku | 1.2 m Ku motorised |
| Remote clinic or school | Site plan or hand-drawn map | Sky Muster II | 1.2 m Ku |
Pulling coordinates from the field without a mobile signal
In a lot of the bush, your phone will give you latitude and longitude as numbers even when the screen shows no reception. Make a habit of grabbing the coordinates in decimal degrees while you can still see clear sky, then writing them down on paper or in the notes app before you drive the next stretch of corrugated dirt road. That way, you do not lose the survey just because the mobile towers ended at the town boundary two hundred kilometres back.
If you are heading into a permit area, ask the client for a cadastral reference first, then double-check with your own GPS so you are not standing on the wrong side of a fence when the cherry picker arrives. SatPointer accepts both decimal degrees and degree-minute-second formats, so paste whatever your device spits out and the map will centre on the right paddock. A small ute-mounted inverter is usually enough to keep the laptop and phone charged while you work the numbers at the gate.
Mapping the site and reading the pointing numbers
Open the SatPointer page from a laptop at the depot and drop the coordinates into the location field. The map jumps to the point and a satellite footprint overlay appears in seconds, showing which birds are above the horizon at that exact spot. For each satellite you can read the azimuth in true degrees, the elevation angle above the horizon, and the polarisation skew the LNB needs to be rotated to.
Take a screenshot of the elevation and skew values before you leave. They are the numbers that matter most on the day, because you will not have a laptop in the dust. A laminated cheat sheet for the common footprints — Optus 10 at 164° east, Sky Muster II at 160° east, Optus D2 for VAST — saves a lot of fiddling when the wind picks up and the ladders start to lean.
Choosing the right dish from the beam coverage data
The satellite database inside SatPointer shows the beam contours for each spacecraft, with estimated dish diameters drawn on top of the map. That overlay is a quiet lifesaver when you are working eight hundred kilometres from the nearest wholesaler, because it tells you whether a 1.2 metre dish will cut it or whether you need to load a 2.4 metre on the tray.
In the Pilbara, the ore bodies sit inside the Optus C1 footprint, but the camp networks often also pull in Sky Muster for staff welfare. A site that needs both usually ends up with two antennas side by side, and SatPointer lets you confirm the look angles for each one before you dig the pad footings. For a single-story clinic or a remote school, the Sky Muster beam map is enough to lock in a 1.2 metre Ku on a sturdy wall mount.
Field conditions across the Australian bush
Heat haze, grass fires and wedge-tailed eagles all play havoc with satellite links in the outback. Plan your survey for the morning when the ground is still cool, mark the dish position with a star picket so the mount does not shift in the soft sand, and keep a tarp ready in case a red dust storm rolls through while the alignment is running.
The road from Coober Pedy to Marla is flat and featureless, with nothing taller than a saltbush for hundreds of kilometres. That is brilliant for clear line of sight to the geostationary arc, but it also means there is no shade for the installers, no mains power for the drill, and no mobile coverage if the look angle turns out to be wrong. Pulling up SatPointer on the laptop in the work ute gives you the truth before you commit to digging.
For broadcasters working out of a news truck at a country football final or a remote rodeo, the pointing maths changes every time the vehicle parks. Reading SNG truck setup guidance helps, and pairing it with the SatPointer widget lets the camera crew punch in the coordinates of the oval and get a heading in seconds.
Sharing the survey and embedding the tool
Once the site is mapped and the numbers are written down, SatPointer lets you grab a permalink for that exact location and share it with the project manager back in the office. The link replays the same pointing angles every time, which is handy when the same dish is being aligned months later by a different contractor on a fly-in fly-out roster.
If you run a regional installation business or a community radio station website, the embeddable SatPointer widget puts the same tool on your own page. Visitors enter their address or postcode and get the look angles for their suburb, which cuts down on the phone calls asking which way to swing the dish. The widget is a small piece of code that drops into most content management systems without any fuss.
If a remote job has you stumped, or you want to test the widget on your own regional business page, the people behind SatPointer are happy to hear from you. Send your coordinates and a short description of the site through the SatPointer contact page and they will usually reply with a recommended dish size and a note on the best beam to aim for.