Ku only BUD

[cband1985]

I have a 7.5 Sami and a 6 foot Unimesh not in use. Thinking about using one for Ku only. How would they perform compared to a 1.0-1.2 offset dish?

 

[gabshere]

its been my experience that the 1.0 & 1.2 will preform better for ku than a smaller mesh

i have a 7 1/2 ft mesh and my ku is on a primestar dish

now when i get my 10 ft up and running i plan to have c & ku on it not cause it will gain any signal . I just want the c & ku on one dish for blindscanning the way i have it now take two receivers .

but i'm sure others will jump in with their experiences

 

[ACRadio]

There are a lot of reasons that a 1 or 1.2 meter usually outperforms a BUD for KU only. The biggest reasons are surface accuracy, feed type, and alignment.

Most people will use a mesh dish because glass or spun dishes are so much harder to install because of the weight. The mesh dish probably has distortions and dings that adversely affect KU signals while not affecting C band signals as much.

A prime focus feed is needed to allow the feed to see the whole dish. Some folks try to put an LNBF there because that's what they have handy, and performance will be degraded. A prime focus feed with a proper LNB will outperform even a Corotor...

Dish alignment is 4 times more critical on KU than C, so some tweaking is required to get it spot on.

I use an 8 foot Channel Master SMC as a KU only dish, and it blows my 1.2 meter CM's and Prodelins out of the water, and I've seen a couple of signals that it edged out my 10 foot CM with Bullseye II/PLL LNB's.

I wrote an article many years ago about what to look for when searching for a BUD. I stated there not to use a BUD for KU because I knew most people wouldn't go to the extent to make it work correctly, especially when offsets are so much easier to install. But if the attention to detail is worth your while, some BUDs can be made to work great as a KU only dish.

 

[Anole]

I'll try to not repeat anything ACradio said so well above... unless it's really, really important.!. -
Just a few points I'd want to consider:

- more meat / less daylight = better for Ku
- mesh over ribs is less accurate @ Ku than spun aluminum or molded fiberglass
- a Ku feedhorn that -really- matches the F/D of the dish is a must, else use that 1m dish
- measure the feedhorn location about six times, six ways, with a laser pointer, and then do it again! - :up

 

[cband1985]

Starting to look like I would be better off to give these 2 dishes away and try to pickup an old Primestar I've got my eye on. Any one near middle Tn that would like to have them? 7.5 Sami is a polar mount with actuator and feed. 6 foot Unimesh is a fixed mount, I think I have a feed for it as well.

 

[sergei]

I got almost the same type dishes right now in service and I'm happy with the performance that both are giving me. The 6' mesh is fixed for now on W5 for the DMX music and right now have one of my 7.5 mesh dish on 101W KU for Fox news audio and I'm just using the KU side of my CO-Rotor as I just haven got around to ordering a new LNBF for KU. If you got the room then go with the mesh dishes especially for C-Band side of FTA. With my other 7.5 dishes it gets reading in the 90+ on the FTA C-band side. Try them first and if they don't work out you can always replace them later, might save a few bucks.