Is there a plugin or something?

Have a few clients that im trying to "draw" a line to show the direction of the dish..

LOL, get a free compass app.

[Link: directv.com]

thats fine if you are onsite, but im not...Trying to get two clients to switch to DTV and if I can show they wont need the dish pointed to the "front" of the house they will switch!

california is west, new york is east, texas is south.

http://www.dishpointer.com

Enter their address, zip code, etc. Choose system. See map with directional line.

Which requires you to make the next logical step:
In California you point southeast; Texas, south; New York, southwest.

Use the DirecTV website to get the azimuth. Use Google Earth to find their house. Draw a line from their house in the direction of the azimuth.

The dish can be anywhere it's got a clear view of the sky in the right direction. Early on we were mounting to the north side of a peaked roof. Dishes can go on the ground if they won't be messed with. One sure side of an amateur installer is a dish on the peak of a roof or on the front of the house.

If you want, send me the address and I'll see if I can mock up something for you.

Edit: Do you have DirecTV? You can go to the aiming section of dish setup and retrieve the info. Then go to tvfool.com (maybe the URL is [Link: tvfool.com]), pretend you're setting up an OTA antenna, and you'll get a map of the address showing azimuth to various OTA transmitters in the area. From that you should be able to work out about which direction the dish must point.

Hes on the east coast so the dish will point southwest.

He's in zip code 19429, for which azimuth is 216.8, elevation is 36.7.

South is 180. West is 270. So he points 36.8 degrees west of due south, a bit south of southwest.

Elevation's an issue if he's just to the northeast of a cliff or very high rise, and on the down side of it.

He, 3PedalMINI, maybe in 19429. But his clients may not.

Just sayin'

KOT

Similar to the scout in the classic old western movie putting an ear to the ground, a modern scout could look at shadow detail on the satellite image.

Do you know what a compass rose is?

The flowers always point to magnetic North at night?

This is true and a good point but it is a statement of defeat.

Your approach has you throwing up your hands saying "I don't know!" My approach gets us close enough to answer the question. I mean, I almost complained that 3PM did not tell us the client's address so we could do his work for him, but hey, I didn't want to be a jerk.

I made the not too great leap that that 3PM lives close enough to that client that the azimuth won't be too much different from 3PM's. (At home, I never even look at a compass. I check google maps and the streets to locate north and aim in the general direction, then catch it within three minutes.) 3PM's azimuth will definitely tell him whether the dish will be on the front or the back of the house.

Or we know nothing because the client might not live in 3PM's zip code.

I have an app called dish align, it gives you a sat view of the house and general direction the dish points, then you can enable the meter when onsite and get a better idea of the direction

Here are a few links as well to other options

[Link: directv.com]

http://www.dishpointer.com/

[Link: itunes.apple.com]

Google maps automatically orients north at top. Find a compass rose graphic and print it off, cut it out and place it on your screen to see which way is south west. That's as close as you are going to get from google maps.