Most other stands use the dish's built-in gauges for elevation and skew/tilt when locating the satellite signal. These gauges are good starting points for the professional installer but they are not very accurate, the exception being the new SlimLine HD dish from DirecTV.

The 1-5/8 OD dish's elevation settings can be off by three or more degrees. The skew or tilt can also be in error depending on how the bracket was placed on the back of the dish and who made the dish.
When using the dish's gauges for fine tuning the elevation results with a signal that usually is not the strongest. Using the dish's gauge, is done by loosening two nuts and moving the dish up or down. When the strongest signal is reached, the dish needs to be held with one hand and the nuts tighten with the other. It seems that two hands are never enough. Then there's a slight downward movement of the mast after letting go of the dish resulting in a built in error factor.

When fine tuning with "PDQ Signal" the it has gauges that allow for the strongest signals to be obtained. These gauges allow you, during the calibration steps, to correct for any errors in the dishes gauges. The result is very accurate gauges.

By using threaded rods for legs the fine tuning of the elevation to be accomplished by raising or lowering the legs. Not needing to touch the dish during the tuning of the elevation, the movement of the mast, after tightening the nuts, is eliminated. This eliminates the built-in error factor. Now the strongest signal strength is obtained quickly.

The new 2 inch OD dish by DirecTV has the elevation setting controlled by a 1/2 inch socket and the gauge for the tilt is connected to the dish so that the bracket cannot slip out of position. The ease of using these adjustments eliminates the need of having the elevation and skew built into the mast. However, it still seems that it is more accurate to use the legs when fine tuning the elevation.

The Mast/Post has two levels and with the threaded legs you can make sure the mast is plumed. This new DirecTV dish is receiving signals from 5 different satellites. The need for the mast to be plumb, regardless of the terrain, is a MUST.  Without levels built into the mast and having all four corners of the stand being easy to adjust up to 7 inches each, the need to be plumb can be a difficult requirment.