I am going to be aligning my DirecTV dish this weekend and wanted any help I could get. I am not having a professional do this, so please do not recommend I call them. Previously I would look at dishes around the neighborhood to get a general direction and then I would point them in the same direction. I hook the dish up to a receiver and a TV so I can tell when I find signal. I can then tighten it and make minor adjustments to improve the signal. I am in the Los Angeles area and the dish moved from Utah where it was previously setup.

Turn the TV and Sat receiver on, go to the setup menu and enter the type dish you have(oval, round, etc).
Enter your Location(zip or coordinates), and it should tell you Elevation and Azimuth.(write these down)
Start with your mounting pole, and adjust so it is as plumb as you can get(a torpedo level on 2 sides 90 degrees from each other).
Then Preset the Elevation, their should be marks on the side you can set to(51 degrees for example)
Then turn to the Azimuth(compass degrees). Slowly turn minute amounts every few seconds and listen for the beep to increase in frequency(you can do this with a home phone and a cell phone. Once Azimuth is adjusted for maximum signal, Lock the Azimuth, then fine adjust very minutely the elevation for maximum, then lock that down.
If you have multiple LNB's you may have squew(tilt) to adjust as well, and this has numbers on the back that it can be set too.