If it was one of the Chaparral Monterey receivers, it could be worth the 29.99. The Monterey 90/95 is considered by most to be the best analog receiver out there. I've been using a Drake 1824 for the past 14 years or so, but a few years ago, I bought a used Monterey 50/55 (the 50/55 and 90/95 is because the 50 and 90 were software upgradable to the 55/95). Anyway, I've just been keeping the Monty 50/55 as a spare, but when my Drake went belly up this weekend, I decided to put the Monty into service, and so far, I'm pretty impressed with it. I wish I had switched long ago. Only strange thing about it is that the polarity skew adjustment doesn't seem to be the same for all sats, whereas on my Drake, all sats (except AMC1-Ku) had the same skew settings. Not sure why it would be different with this Monty, unless it has something to do with the Monty changing configuration for ODD-H vs ODD V sats or something.
But yes, the Monty 50/55 is a BIG receiver, but I think might be due to the heavy power supply.