Hello Olive,Ive got one of these portable systems.In the beginning I did find it extremely difficult to find a satellite.
Have you got a compass,so that you know where 28.2 degrees from south actually is?
I think the key thing is to move the dish extremely slowly,as it is very easy to miss astra 2,and make sure you have line of sight,trees are bad news,and then once your locked onto it the dish needs to be fixed firmly.
Once you get the knack it just takes a matter of minutes to get it working.
As philspadders says there is loads of info on the forum about this.
Cheers Richard