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Since in the beginning, there was Analog with no scrambled signals. It would have to be one of those receivers. Because that was Free To Air, but I'm sure you probably mean Digital, so I don't know that answer either. But, the first Mpeg 2 receiver I saw (other than 4dtv and Digicipher 2) was a Manhattan Plaza receiver, and it probably wasn't the first?

Al

I can claim to be the first, if not one of the first retailers in the U.S. to carry Free-To-Air MPEG-2 receivers. We started importing Hyundai HSS-100 receivers in August 1997, and the challenges that appeared back then included a retail price of over seven hundred dollars for a receiver that got 99 "bouquets" or transponders of programming. It came in with 220 volts/50 Hz power, and all graphics were in PAL format. There were maybe 25 FTA channels in the clear, mostly on C-band satellites. Once you got the power situation resolved, it was usually necessary or at least advisable to have a cheap multistandards converter on hand so that you could read the graphics to set up the receiver. Once an NTSC signal had been scanned, it could then be viewed with the VIDEO output from the Hyundai unit into a standard NTSC monitor or through a device such as a regular VCR.

Gary Bourgois and I enjoyed this new technology on Labor Day weekend of 1997, and the among the first feeds we saw were the initial reports of Princess Diana's death in Paris, fed to CTV Network/Canada from their London bureau. It was then that I realized that digital video could actually look good, when it was transmitted in a format with a 27.500 symbol rate. Robert Smathers of New Mexico was the first retail customer for this unit, which I quickly shipped to him after our initial tests. As the keeper of the Scanners Chart that listed satellite information, he needed a tool to update these "new" MPEG-2 signals.

Panarex Electronics made an agreement with Hyundai to bring in Americanized versions of this receiver in February 1998, and put the Pansat badge on the Pansat 100A, the first "American" receiver to really hit the market. My wholesale costs immediately went down 200 dollars with the Pansat units, and we had something that did not have to be modified for voltage or video system...as it was 110 volt/60 Hz and NTSC formatted.

The first receivers that I encountered before the Hyundai HSS-100 were built in 1996 by Scientific Atlanta and Nokia, sold in Europe and Asia. Very expensive, not particularly reliable, and immensely difficult to get serviced outside their target area that did not include North America. I saw signals produced on these receivers at a satellite trade show in Auckland, New Zealand back in January 1997. It's been a long road since then...when you consider that the first blind scan receivers did not appear here until late in 2004.

Interesting history Mike, I suppose by waiting until 2006 to buy my first blindscan fta box I really didn't miss out on much. Except the power issues and difficulty/expense of the early models.

If you every want to start a museum for old sat stuff Ive got some manual tune C band
analog receivers.It was the neatest thing when my neighbor gave me a receiver that I could operate with a remote and had a digital display.(still analog tho)

I regret getting rid of..

My Houston Tracker V.