Odom 10ft Mesh BUD Setup

[Captain Midnight]

I looked online here and abroad and didn't find anything on setting up an ODOM 10ft dish. What I am curious about is f/D setting and focal distance. I was wondering if anyone had this dish and could tell me what works for you.
If anything, I'll calculate it myself. But I would like to hear any information someone might have on this dish.

 

[Captain Midnight]

I measured the dish as being 118" diameter with a depth of 21.5". My calculations show a focal depth of 41.3" and a f/D setting of .35

 

[Captain Midnight]

Would it benefit me any to raise the focal length and use a different f/d like 0.38 or 0.4?

 

[Titanium]

Calculations are meant to be a starting point. You might experiment to verify the optimized feed and scalar positioning, but use multiple satellites and transponders so not to optimize for a single signal that may be received better with de-tuning.

Moving the FL will possibly move the feedhorn out of the signal convergence "sweet spot". Changing the FD setting changes the illumination of the reflector, either overshooting the edges and picking up terrestrial interference or under-illuminating the reflector and not gathering all of the reflected signals. When modifying the feed[placement the beam pattern of the dish will be affected and side lobes will be changed and adjacent off axis undesireable signals may not be attenuated.

 

[Captain Midnight]

Calculations are meant to be a starting point. You might experiment to verify the optimized feed and scalar positioning, but use multiple satellites and transponders so not to optimize for a single signal that may be received better with de-tuning.

Moving the FL will possibly move the feedhorn out of the signal convergence "sweet spot". Changing the FD setting changes the illumination of the reflector, either overshooting the edges and picking up terrestrial interference or under-illuminating the reflector and not gathering all of the reflected signals. When modifying the feed[placement the beam pattern of the dish will be affected and side lobes will be changed and adjacent off axis undesireable signals may not be attenuated.

That is what I am curious about. Wish I knew the design spec for this Odom dish. I have not found any specs on Odom dishes. The lower the f/D, the wider the angle that signal is collected, but I guess I will have to experiment with the best settings for my application.

 

[Captain Midnight]

I was able to get this dish up and running with slightly better performance on many TPs but with some missing when compared to my 7.5ft SAMI. I think I need to try a different f/d ratio setting. My LNBF is set to .35 right now.

 

[Captain Midnight]

Update: This dish is great! It's not perfect, but it receives everything I've wanted. I had my focal length off by 2cm and true south alignment was a little off. Once I corrected that, the signals boomed in. And for anyone wondering, f/D is 0.35. I confirmed that by measuring the original Chaparral feed and by trying 0.36 and 0.37.