Is an Alphastar Receiver good for anything?

[Davage]

Just last week I was at a hardware store helping them move their server. They had a "junk" room full of old boxes, and old dead stock. In that old dead stock was a box with an old Alphastar Receiver inside. (I'm assuming the box wasn't empty).

I did some searches, and wasn't able to determine if that receiver was of any value at all for free-to-air on Galaxy 25,or any other satellite. Does anybody know if these receivers have a jtag on them, what type of processor they have, etc to see if there is the possibility of loading a Pansat file to it to be able to blind scan etc? I could probably get the Alphastar receiver for free, or next to nothing for price, but I don't know if it is even worth the time of day to look at it or not.

 

[Mr Tony]

I dont remember if Alphastar was DCI or DCII encoding(I know Primestar was DigiCipherI)

correction: they used DVB so it might work for something

 

[dodge]

Alphastar

I Thought they were DVB and used Nagra Vision for Security.

 

[Davage]

I really should have asked the store about it while I was there, but it was 1AM, and after an 18 hour day of work I just didn't really feel like digging into the pile of stuff to get to that box at the bottom. I'll wait to see if anybody has any other feedback before I call the store. I wasn't sure if they'd be like a proprietary Dishnetwork receiver or not.

 

[ftarock]

It's DVB compliance. The problem is that SR is fixed at 23000. You must have valid access card to access to hidden menu to change the Frequency. Valid access card means you get no error message something like "please insert access card" or "invalid card...".
Bottom line is if the access card is good, you will be able to use it for couple of muxes on IA7 that have the SR at 23000. 12177 Vertical is one of them.
If you have it, it's fun to play but not good if it's not a true FTA DVB receiver.
Good luck

Just last week I was at a hardware store helping them move their server. They had a "junk" room full of old boxes, and old dead stock. In that old dead stock was a box with an old Alphastar Receiver inside. (I'm assuming the box wasn't empty).

I did some searches, and wasn't able to determine if that receiver was of any value at all for free-to-air on Galaxy 25,or any other satellite. Does anybody know if these receivers have a jtag on them, what type of processor they have, etc to see if there is the possibility of loading a Pansat file to it to be able to blind scan etc? I could probably get the Alphastar receiver for free, or next to nothing for price, but I don't know if it is even worth the time of day to look at it or not.

 

[Davage]

It's DVB compliance. The problem is that SR is fixed at 23000. You must have valid access card to access to hidden menu to change the Frequency. Valid access card means you get no error message something like "please insert access card" or "invalid card...".
Bottom line is if the access card is good, you will be able to use it for couple of muxes on IA7 that have the SR at 23000. 12177 Vertical is one of them.
If you have it, it's fun to play but not good if it's not a true FTA DVB receiver.
Good luck

The receiver should include the access card because it is still new in the box. If I have the opportunity to get it for free, I'll take it, just to play with. (Even though I have 2 Satpros and a Fortec receiver here )

 

[Mr Tony]

even if its like 5-10 bucks I'd still grab it. Never know what you might be able ot get