SatFinderAndroid

Paul Lutus

About this app

Let me say up front that SatFinderAndroid is free, there are no ads, and there are no "pro version" appeals or come-ons. This program is exactly what it appears to be -- a free, useful tool for locating and pointing satellite dishes.

SatFinderAndroid is an advanced Android-based geostationary satellite location and dish alignment tool. It includes a database of all geostationary satellites worldwide, and it provides detailed pointing instructions for all of them. It also has a list of popular satellite receiving dish models with pointing data for them as well. And more, it has a way to superimpose the locations of your selected satellites directly on a live camera picture of the sky at your location. The picture on this page shows a typical display of four user-selected satellites, positioned on the sky in their correct locations. SatFinderAndroid also has another pointing method, meant for Android devices without cameras, that uses your Android device as an azimuth and elevation sighting tool.

SatFinderAndroid takes what was once a rather complex technical job requiring a knowledge of ZIP codes, city and state names, or geographic positions, plus a hand bearing compass and an inclinometer, and collapses it into an easy-to-use Android application that locates itself, finds your satellite, and then tells you where it is by pointing to it.

Because SatFinderAndroid was completely rewritten in October 2017 and much improved in all respects, I ask that visitors disregard reviews posted before that time.

The SatFinderAndroid Home Page is located at http://arachnoid.com/android/SatFinderAndroid

Ratings and reviews

It's not perfect, but it works very well, and it made the task of finding a place in my yard to move my DirecTV satellite dish to very easy. I could see just where it needed to be so it would not be blocked by the tops of any trees. Much of the sky view depends on the quality of your phone, and my phone, being a cheap Tracfone, isn't great, but it was good enough to get the job done. I would definitely recommend this to others.

Does it's job well. Would be good to have ability to input degrees for offset dishes

in this app we cannot find/do search for a particular satellite

What's new

08.25.2020 Version 3.2. Mandatory retargeting to Android 10 (API 29).