digibox firmware

[noz]

OK OK I give in. I thought I was worldly wise about satellites. How wrong was I? I've got a motorised system, Technomate 5500DAPCI, 1.3m dish, Matrix Reloaded and Tit card and have no problems.

However, a conundrum was started when my neighbour asked if there was anything that can be done with his old redundant Grundig GDS200 Digibox. Sure I said and set of on the search. What I found was a roaring trade in second hand digiboxes. His particular model fetching between £180 and £200. Great I thought, some bright spark has figured out how to update the firmware to enable the CI slot and they're being used as generic boxes for multiple satellite setups. Well if that's the case, I'm stuffed if I can find it. I've searched the entire universe through google and came up with diddley-squat.

Now I'm not prepared to believe that people are spending £180-200 on a secondhand digibox which is unmodified and hence can only receive FTA channels. Especially when you could buy a serious bit of new kit for the same money with embedded cams etc to get you more than just FTA's.

I know I'm being thick but can someone put me out of my misery? Why are second hand digiboxes so valuable when $ly is not hacked and I cant find any firmware upgrades to open up the boxes?

Please help before I go mad.

cheers

noz

 

[rolfw]

Certain Digiboxes can be quite sought after by ex-patriates in far flung places, outside the footprint of Astra 2D, but the prices to which you refer are not what is being achieved on eBay at the moment. http://search.ebay.co.uk/grundig-di...ntryZ3QQsorecordsperpageZ50QQsosortpropertyZ1

In fact far from it, the prices are now quite low.

PS. There is nothing that can be modded on the box.

 

[PaulR]

A digibox is worth more with a working card to give the FTV channels but even so I would have thought that a more reasonable price would be £80 - £120 or so.

PaulR

 

[Zorba]

200 squid for a grundig 200 ? If anyone out there wants one (or more) let me know.I was using my old one as a doorstop,and another one as a footrest.any bidders?

 

[theReindeer]

I bought a Pace2600 recently on eBay, but the HF receiver part, did't work at it should
on fringe. Maybe I am more lucky with a Grundig 200 ?

 

[iansat]

I bought a Panasonic TU-DSB30 for 50 quid on ebay and this is one of the better digiboxes

 

[theReindeer]

I have also heard, that the Pace2600 is one of the best (if not the best) on fringe.
I bought mine for 70 quid + 30 for p&p.
My problem is that in my case it displays absolute

0 for signal strength
0 for signal quality

In exactly the same environment (Astra2: CNN and SkyNews) my
DreamBox-7000 shows:

84 % SNR (= signal to noise ratio)
54 % AGC (= automatic gain control)
0 BER (bit errors)

and has absolutely no freezers and no flakes over a long watching period.

So my question, if anyone knows here:

• There is a DiseqC relais between the Pace2600 and the LNB, which I have
  preset before to LNB D (Astra2 in my case) ?
  Can it be, that the Digibox doesn't work at all, when a DiseqC relais is between it and the LNB ?
  Can it be that the Digibox trys to reset the DiseqC to LNB A (the default) ?
• Is it a common flaw of older Pace2600 models, that the HF decoder part may be
  completely damaged, when the rest of the receiver is fully working ?
  Could this have been caused by something like EMP (electro magnetic pulse) if a lightning struck nearby ?
• Could a damage of the HF decoder part have been caused by normal attrition during long time operation ?

I use a 90cm French Visiosat plastic dish and a 0.3 db Invacom Quad LNB.

My problem is, that in my country there is probably no repairshop having any
particular expertice with such a device.

 

[rolfw]

Unless i have read your setup incorrectly, the Astra 28.2 signal needs to be on port A on the DiseqC switch, as the switch always defaults to that output in the absence of a command.

 

[theReindeer]

@rolfw,

You are right, this particular Digibox model makes an attempt to reset
the DiseqC port to A, regardles to what it has been set before by another STB
(DreamBox, Hauppauge Nexus ...) :-bash.
So, I simply swapped input cable 4 and 1, and its working now :-cheers , but only
for Astra2, without being able to use any DiseqC features.

Signal strength 60%
Signal quality 85-90 %

THX