Very old dial tuning analogue receivers - any value?

Rob Wheeler

I found a couple of dial tuning analogue receivers in a cupboard the other day. One is a Rockdale SLC7E, the other is a Connexions model. I would be grateful to know if either boxes have any value, prehaps as an antique. I was using these boxes up until a few years ago with a dish made out of not much more than a bin lid. I found them useful for quickly flicking through a satellite, much better than a digital tuner, great if looking for a feed for a football match. The one problem is that neither box supports automatic H/V switching, so the LNB I had had to be manually turned around. They do have a polairty switching, but I do not have an lnb that supports this. Anyway, anybody know if they are worth anything to anyone?

Cheers!

Rob Wheeler

Channel Hopper

These were in the days of the mid 80s, around the time of the Luxor, Salora and cable modified amateur stuff

Before tone switching, voltage switching, mag and mechanical polarisers, 2050 tuners, 9.75 GHz LNBs

So what you have will scan an analogue satellite about 75% of the way.

Probably worth it for keeping German TV in the granny annex, but not much else.

As for value, as much as you think, but dont get too optimistic

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

rolfw

I'm sure that they will be of interest to some people Rob, but whether they are worth any money is another matter. Pov seems to collect analogue receivers, but he'd probably want to pay you in oatcakes.

@ CH. wouldn't they use a 10Ghz LO?

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Channel Hopper

The original single hop LNBs used 10GHz as a starting step, ( the satellites were all 10.95 GHz and above)

I still have a shed full of these if anyone wants them.

Looking back through the cobwebs into the lockup I can also see some makes of receivers that only the verterans here would remember, again this was for use with LNAs with the cable taking the direct satellite frequency into the home

Then the late 80 stuff
Gensat 4/10, Redifusion RSR50, Technisat Cygnus (clonish Echo 4500), Drake ESR324 and 3240, Raynor 5000,

and then the later stuff which serves to keep the back door locked.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

Rob Wheeler

Thanks for the info guys. I didn't quite understand all the info, but from memory, the Rockdale unit didn't cover all the lower pre-Astra 1D extended signals, but I think the Connexions one did at least some of them without modification. The dial on the Connexions unit goes very high. The top 1/4 to 1/3 of the dial had no channels, so I guess these were very high frequencies. In fact I recall I once recorded some weird scrambled audio, like a police radio off of the very top end of the dial. Probably just some RF I guess. Come to think of it, I do live not far from an army base so it could have been something from there.

Both of these units have serial RS252 ports on them. What were they used for? The only thing I could thing of was that they may have been designed to feed very a few bits of vertical blank information to some early external decoder, but then I decided that was a stupid idea.

Thanks again for your help!

rolfw

Hi Rob, do you still have the receivers? I spoke to an enthusiast today who was looking for similar models, apparently they can be useful with certain adaptation.

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Robert Wheeler

Hi,

I know i'm a bit late in returning to this thread...

...but do you reckon he still wants them ?

And what was the application ? (If you can remeber?)

If you still visit here ?

Lancelot

OH YES - they still visit here



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L.

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I've got an inferiority complex, but it's not a very good one.

edd173

I was idly playing on Ebay as i do during periods of boredom and someone is selling an Amstrad SRD400 with a buy it now of 50 quid. Although it does have the 99 channel conversion. So, working on a reverse scale of age and functionality, the rotary dials could be a little goldmine.

Lancelot

50 quid
Really ??


L.

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I've got an inferiority complex, but it's not a very good one.

edd173

Serious!!! now, Robs recievers, i could see the appeal in for a few quid, for the antique/rarity value, similarly there is a Uniden UST-7007 on for pennies, which were great (albeit weighed a ton) old machines, but an Amstrad SRD?? That said. they were ok in the day IMO, as they did bring satellite to the masses and were quite pioneering in that they were the first integrated reciever decoder. If only Amstrad could have employed the same effort in the quality control dept as they did in innovation eh?

Skip Channel

My parents had that Amstrad, they got it in '91 and it was still going strong when they switched to digital in 2000. Compared to their Panasonic Digibox and their Pace Sky+ it worked very well. Never had to reboot it or anything! ;o)

Took ages to clear a channel though! If flipping around in the ad breaks we'd make sure we stuck to the unscrmabled channels or else we wouldn't have time to see anything!

Channel Hopper

Youve never used a Pace 2000 series machine. Utterly horrendous.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

edd173

Im sure i would have done at some point? Is that the one that Fergusson rebranded? I remember there was one with no keys on the box, just the remote! That would be fun when Rover decided to eat something other than Winalot

digiguy

Satellite Superstore want any unwanted sat equipment for their online museum. They have a few pages at the mo with vintage video recorders etc.

Channel Hopper

I will send them the remains of the Hero 5m dish I took off a site in Windsor some years ago - COD of course.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"