Old Equipment Info Needed

[Mr Tony]

I still have my original AlphaStar system and I'm using the dish for receiving 97 orbital with a Pansat 3500. It has a dual LNBF and works great. Last time I used the receiver was to subscribe to the Extacy channel. I have the dish manual but can't find the receiver manual, it's in the house somewhere. Here's some pics...

cool pics

 

[rglore]

Found the receipt, bought from CDW for $360 in January '97. Two models were available, single and dual LNB systems. Also found a printed copy of their website explaining they were switching the service from T4 to T5 satellite and detailed instructions on how to repoint the dish. Back then, you were encouraged to self install, good times.

 

[Corrado]

The trivia is great. Thanks for everyone chiming in. Personally, I didn't follow much of the small dish beginnings back in the 90s and never heard of Alphastar.

I remember seeing the self install kits for small dish providers in stores several years ago. I guess most of these have gone away for the most part except the prepay kits at Radio Shack. As modern installs have grown increasingly complex, today's demanding consumers complain enough even with a professional install.

 

[Mr Tony]

originally pro install was 200 bucks for Dish/Direct

I sold Primestar in 95-96 and it was 200 bucks up front for equipment & install. You paid extra each month for the equipment but it was like you were leasing it

 

[1captain]

got my hands on a camera an took some pictures of my 90cm AlphaStar dish hope you all enjoy, now only have seen just 1 other dish like this, so I think not that many where made. it was made by Eagle an have fotec universal lnb an a CE-1000, an the 2 lnb's are space on a 4-degree spacing. this dish has been 1 of the best small dishes that I have ever used or set up for any 1, of the same size or even a little bigger.

If you look at the 1st an 3rd picture you will see the name AlphaStar that is faded bad from our Fla sun.
enjoy, this was my 1st try to upload pictures an it worked.

 

[Techfizzle]

Primestar USED to be analog B-Mac before it went digital in the early 90's
need info/pics on the analog receiver
primestar was going to be DCII in '95 via a sidecar that hooked up to the side of the receiver need info/pics of the sidecar
need ad/brochure scans of primestar and primestar on screen menus and primestar receiver pictures
need ad scans of :
EARLY Directv systems
Early Dish Network Systems
Alphastar Systems

All help is apreciated

Here is a neat article about primestar
from a old bbs site

Primestar uses the Digicipher 1 and the picture appears to
be of slightly higher quality than the DSS picture. The sound
produced by both systems is excellent. Both systems will be
upgraded this year. Digicipher 1 IRD's (Integrated Receiver
Decoders) will be upgraded to the Digicipher II in 1995.
Customers will receive sidecar modules by mail and will
simply plug them in. Digicipher II will allow greater and
higher quality compression so more channels may be carried.
While Primestar is using a proprietary compression system
developed by General Instrument, GI claims that Digicipher
II can be made MPEG II compatible. DSS is currently using
MPEG 1 but they will soon upgrade their system to the new
MPEG II standard. MPEG II is the accepted compression standard.
According to DirecTV the all necessary modifications
will be performed to encoders at the headend.

 

[voomvoom]

You are way ahead of me on this.... I have no idea why anyone would need to know the answers to any of those questions? Good Luck!

 

[voomvoom]

OK, after reading your post in this thread:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/110688-digicipher-i-signal.html

I see where you're going, but it's still way above me
Good Luck!

 

[Techfizzle]

I like reading info on obsolete equipment

 

[ACRadio]

Primestar USED to be analog B-Mac before it went digital in the early 90's
need info/pics on the analog receiver

If Primestar was B-MAC the receiver would have probably been made by Scientific Atlanta.

 

[Mr Tony]

merged threads together

 

[Greg Mueller]

If Primestar was B-MAC the receiver would have probably been made by Scientific Atlanta.

Sniffing around I found out that the NJR2112F LNBs that Primestar used were indeed made by Scientific Atlanta, but they got bought up by Cisco and that was that.

 

[ACRadio]

I believe they were made by New Japan Radio (NJR) and they're still in business...