thermostat anticipator

Campo

I manage 3 steam heating systems for my landlord. (Incidently, he paid for me to go to Dan's Lost Art seminar so I could better understand the very old systems.) I am now trying to understand how the thermostat's anticipator setting is effecting the systems heating. Am I to assume that the with steam I should not set the anticipator one unit above the gas valve's amperage? The burner had been shourt cycling so I set the anticipator to the highers setting. Now the burner runs very long and the temperature overshoots. But, I thought that a higher setting should prevent this??? I thought that the anticipator would generate more heat at a higher setting.

Please help me to better undertand how this works and where it should be set.

Thanks for everything,

Campo