I've used Gourmet Entertaining's Arc Set and think it works great. Much easier then using a compass or the north star. It works for a range of about 50 miles from where he sets it up for and you can adjust it for a new location by calibrating the bubbles to a know working dish. Once you have your dish aligned, you can check the alignment in less than five minutes. He says your post does not even have to be plumb, but I can't vouch for that.
I can vouch for the fact that it's possible to perfectly align a dish with a pole that is tilted significantly. Also, back in the 90s, the TVRO forum I was on had some members who were apparently at a demonstration where the Gourmet fellow (I forget his name) aligned a dish on a pole that was tilted by something like 30 degrees. At the time, I didn't believe it was possible, unless the tilt was to the south, so I made myself a little wooden model of a dish on a tilted pole, hoping to demonstrate that it WASN'T possible, but I ended up proving to myself that it was indeed possible. I never did have a real occasion to try it, except once when I put one of my dishes on the trunk of a small tree that I cut off at the 5' level, and just bolted a dish to it. It was tilted quite a bit, and I used the Gourmet thing to transfer settings from my main bud over to it, and it worked for a while until the tree grew a bit and tilted even more. But yes, I think it can work on a tilted pole.
I would consider the arcset an expensive POS. I was using it regularly up to year 5 of ownership on my own dishes and my friends dishes and then put it away in its box in a cool, dark place. When I needed it at year 10, it was useless because two of the three vials had leaked and dried up. Only one vial was useful and the tool was useless because you need all 3. I contacted Gourmet Entertaining asking about a warranty or replacement of the tool and got no response, so he doesn't seem to stand behind his product.
For $300, you should get yourself a satfinder meter (actual receiver-like chip that will lock onto DVB-S signals and give you signal/noise figures and includes a primitive spec analyzer screen so you can check for signal at a glance even though the resolution is not good enough for signal hunting or polarity setting).
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Like I posted above, the same thing happened to one of the 3 vials on my ArcSet. The level vials are definately low quality. I have an antique level that belonged to my great grandfather. The level is probably something like 70-90 years old, and has a similar style of adjustable bubble, and it is still working after nearly a century of use, but that's because the bubble is glass. I think that when you put organic solvents in a plastic vial, you can't expect them to last forever. But yes, they use inexpensive parts. On the other hand, I'm not sure how reasonable it is to expect ANY item to be guaranteed for 10 years.
Also, like you, I never really saw the need to use the Arc-Set. I think that if you have a good sense for the alignment process, that it usually won't take long to get just as good or better of an alignment as you can with the ArcSet, but most beginners don't have a solid concept of what they're supposed to be doing, particularly with respect to rotation axis elevation and declination. Even with the best meter, you need to get either the rotation axis OR the declination set fairly accurately, or you're not going to track well. Depending on your dish, it may be easier to accurately set the rotation axis or with other dishes, it's easier to set the declination, but you need to set one of them or a meter won't do the job. The Arc-Set DOES give you a quick way to get both of these angles very close, and you can then use a meter to fine adjust one of the two.
I DO think, that one of those little digital square levels that people have been promoting here, can give even better results than the ArcSet, for less money, provided that you know what angles to use, and can find a good place to put them where you can read the displays, ie sometimes it's easier to see if a bubble is centered than it is to read a digital display in poor light (or when looking through a bug helmet). I haven't yet bought one of those little square digital levels, but I do have a couple 1' long digital levels, so I used those to set the bubbles on the remaining two ArcSet levels, and they DO seem to make it easier to see when I'm adjusted right. although I must say, that I do still get confused with respect to which direction to put the things, so as not to get the 90 minus angle. I got one of those neat digital lable maker things (which is also great for putting labels on cables), and put little notes on the two levels to remind me of which is for what, and which direction I should be holding it.
My big problem with using mine now, is that there is no longer any flat surface on my mount that I can put ANY level on, since it has kind of rusted under the paint some places, and one of the flat surfaces has actually warped. Ie I get different readings at different points just a half inch apart. A longer level would give better results, but there isn't any surface on any of my dishes where I can fit a long level.
Anyway, I do agree, that I don't think that I would recommend spending the money on an Arc-Set, but I think that they do work, and some people seem to like them.
