I was at a diner in Tucson last Saturday and this retired engineer saw my notebook with satellite frequency scribbles. He said I was overthinking the reflector shape and that a simple offset feed works better for most free signals than those fancy prime focus builds. He pulled out a napkin and drew what he called a "cheap pizza pan setup" that he used back in the 80s to catch NASA weather satellites. Now I'm wondering if I've been making this too complicated... has anyone else gone simple and seen better results?
I used to just buy those little flat antennas from the store and hope for the best... got maybe 3 channels on a good day. Last month I built a proper 60cm dish out of an old satellite TV reflector and some copper wire I had lying around. After tweaking the feed horn position for 2 hours, I locked onto a weather satellite passing over Atlanta around 6 AM. It's not much but it's my first real catch without buying any fancy gear. Has anyone else started with a repurposed dish and found it way better than store bought stuff?