Minibud / Microbud
Both of these terms refer to an undersize (less than 6ft) satellite dish being used to receive Cband satellite signals. While these terms are used interchangeably, generally a minibud is a dish that is 1m in size or larger and a microbud is smaller than 1m.
Motorized vs stationary
Most hobbyists prefer a motorized dish due to the shear number of satellites available. Some dishes do not motorize easily such as those which were designed for Internet reception or Muzak digital music or even some Direct-to-home services. Those dishes have heavy or odd mounts and were not meant to be motorized. Dishes meant for and available to the hobbyists usually can be motorized quite easily. The motor should match the size and weight of the dish. An undersized motor will fail.
Hardware / LNB practices - Combo vs sidecar
While a used dish may be free or cheap it must be free of defects, dents and warps and should include all parts necessary for mounting and adjustment.
There are 2 options to receive Ku and Cband on a single dish.
1) Dual C/Ku - usually results in losing one when tweaking for the other
2) 2 separate units where one is in the centre and the other beside using a bracket from the arm.
Conventional LNB vs PLL LNB - The new Cband PLL LNB from Titanium is currently the best solution compared to a standard LNB
Conical scalar - a stepped cone that attaches to the Cband LNB that improves reception. (Looks like a blue Devo hat)
The dish should be as big as you can get. This is universally accepted that a larger dish without flaws will work better than a smaller dish. Yes, some makes and models are better so do your research.
What channels will I get.
This depends on where you live, dish size, LNB type, how well you pointed it!
Best satellites
The winner is 99w
Which Sat / transponder for pointing
The strongest transponder on 99w seems to be 4000 H 26400 so that is what you need to aim for and then tweak for 3848 H 15030 and 3720 H 8703
