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spiff is right! I remember the first real "digital" video I picked up with my first receiver, and I was amazed at how good it looked. Up until that day the only digital video I had seen was dishnetwork. Then, my next question of course, was why do THEY look so bad when a reporter-on-the-street shot looked so good? LOL

It can be done fast, but a lot of it is selecting a good known transponder, and setting the right lnb freq in your receiver. The last dish I set up was last summer at my sister's house. It was a fixed dish and it took about 2 hours.

That was including a run to the hardware store to get screws and build a ladder to get to her roof, she's cheap like me, and didn't want to spend $50 bucks on a ladder when there was enough 2X4's laying in the yard to get to the roof if only we had enough srews to put it together.

Practice helps alot as in anything, but if you try aiming, without the motor, on different sats and getting watchable channels on 3 or 4 sats you will be able to do it with the motorized setup.

Signal means nothing, Quality is what you want. Have a tv and the receiver where you can see the tv from you dish location, nobody wants to be yelling or phoning somebody that can only see the tv, because it is a lot slower.

Make very small movements east to west and wait for 1-2 seconds before you move again. If you still can't find it, adjust the dish elevation about 1 degree, and move the dish east-west again. Repeat till you get quality. It may seem hard when you are starting out, but after a while you can move a fixed dish from one sat to another in a few minutes.

We have all been there, patience.

Daniel Boone was asked once if he had ever been lost in the wilderness.

"No, but I was once a mite bewildered for three days"

Lots of good input here. I'll try to add to it a bit and re-itterate some others. 41 is a poor signal or 'connection quality' reading. It should change [increase] when a good connection is made to an lnb, [ if the setup data is correct] even if it is pointed at the ground. Be sure to verify the ~13 or 18 vdc at the STB input connector and lnb end. Look for damaged or crushed places on the coax, poor crimps etc. Make sure there is one continous run of coax from the box to the STB, no slices, splitters, switches, etc. The setup for that lnb will affect this reading too.
Remove as many variables as possible. put the dish on the pole w/o the posititoner first. Know your true south direction, and become familiar with the appx relative locations of a few key birds. The Echo circular sats are very stong and evenly spaced across the Americas. As pointed out, the LO/IF/LNB Freq varies on which LNB you have. The menu description also varies by mfgr as well. Purchased for TFTA in the US, you probably have a LNB that uses a value of 10.750, regardless of what it is called. Your vendor docs should provide this info. If you have a circular LNB for some reason, it is an 11250, and will not work for TFTA service. Linear LNBs usually will pick up circular signal, probably due to the higher strength, but circulars dont see the lower powered linear signals. The sat rx freqs that you enter are critical as well. Dont expect the factory defaults, if any to be valid. The 1st entry in the table is likely the one it uses to display signal on the satellite setup page. With a single lnb for input you need no switch config, set this all to off or none. Arm youself with a valid freq list for the sats you want to lock onto. There is a proggy called Channelmaster that allows channel data editing for some stb's. I dont know if your is supported, but if so, you can build a basic sat/freq table of known good 'markers' and dl it to your box if supported.
Do not over tighten or undertighten the mount while manually panning. Too loose = too sloppy, and too tight = over stressing the assy and 'springback affect' on small movements. This goes for the elevation adjustments too. A bit of vasoline on the movable points/pole will make for a smoother pan at small increments. Allow at least 1-2 seconds for the rx to lock before proceeding to the next incremental move. Keep the vasoline to a min and you can mark good hits on the pole w/ a sharpie for temp reference points. Dont go for precision at this point as much as proving the HW and the data setup. Once you've verified the setup and a few key markers points, step back and look at each successful position, make notes of sig quality, then set the assy up w/ the motor and do it all over again, tweaking the elevation.
It is a task that demands patience, but 5 days is wrong. The guy that said all day was.....well. I'll be nice. Suffice it to say a few hrs tops is all you need to be up and running sitting on the couch wearing the remote out. Preparation is the key. Have as many variable out of the equation as possible, and the actual pointing becomes a trivial task. Good luck, and welcome to the hobby...........dont give up, there are lots of knowledgable and helpfull folks here that want nothing more than to see a fellow TFTA'er succeed.

PS Cad , Brian Keith had a similar line in The Mountain Men - "Lost? I aint never been lost, Been a fearsome bit confused for a few monthes, but never lost."