Amiko A3 short review

[eastof111]

Just hooked up a Logitech MK750 solar/light powered wireless keyboard to the receiver and it was recognized. To test the keyboard out, I download MS Office Suite (free version) and played with it and I am quite surprised at the flexibility this allows the user. Absolutely no problems with this keyboard. One can use the Logitech mouse (but it uses batteries, claiming 36 month cycle) or the RC air mouse. Quite impressed with how far this Android version has matured.

Still have to test my bud and my motorized hot dish. So far, I've only tested an 8x1 with 22k switches connected to small ku dishes.

[ViP3R]

Just hooked up a Logitech MK750 solar/light powered wireless keyboard to the receiver and it was recognized. To test the keyboard out, I download MS Office Suite (free version) and played with it and I am quite surprised at the flexibility this allows the user. Absolutely no problems with this keyboard. One can use the Logitech mouse (but it uses batteries, claiming 36 month cycle) or the RC air mouse. Quite impressed with how far this Android version has matured.

Still have to test my bud and my motorized hot dish. So far, I've only tested an 8x1 with 22k switches connected to small ku dishes.

Something is very wrong with this!



I don't see any Beer money on the Personal Budget...

[eastof111]

Working on it....!

[eastof111]

Just played around with loading and looking at the xml files with the Spark editor. After enjoying Dreamboxedit, it's like the dark ages with the spark editor. I think I will leave well enough alone for a while until I get acclimated with the files.

[el bandido]

What I see so far is a decent Android box tied to a low end fta receiver. I can buy a decent Android box for about $80.00 or less, so why should I pay 3 times that price for the A3?

[eastof111]

It all boils down to support.... if the current and future support and development is real and is maintained, I am willing to pay the price.

[eastof111]

While playing around with the remote, found out it has a built-in microphone which one can use to send voice commands to the receiver. This saves many steps of having to push buttons on the RC.

The first pix displays a microphone logo on the screen after muttering "METV" into the RC. Then one can select the appropriate TV channel with the up/down arrows keys.

The second pix displays anything with "RUSSIA TODAY".

If one is searching for an app, the third pix displays an app called "SPEED TEST" which it found right away too.

The fourth pix shows the RC being used as a game controller after activating the "GAME" button. The yellow buttons are used for control.

The RC can be programmed in various foreign languages through the menu settings. I have not tried to reprogram the RC to find "CERVEZA" yet.

After scanning some of the sats with the bud this evening, I was able to assign them to various named favorites channels. Using the keyboard, I was able to rename or edit them on the fly without having to transfer files to the PC and load them to the spark editor. Much easier this way and saves a lot of time.

Still have a lot more to learn of the capabilities this receiver has to offer.

[eastof111]

Had some time today to play with the Hotdish and SG motor. Did a backup first in case anything went south. Shut down the unit and connected the Hotdish cable and set up the lat. & long. in the menu setting. Then using USALS, I selected my southern sat and the A3 moved the dish to the correct location. Checked a few other sats and it moved the dish appropriately and picked up the channels I had previously scanned with my smaller fixed ku dishes a few days ago.

Checking out diseqc 1.2, I went to a ku sat and changed the setting to 1.2 from the prior Usals. Selected the sat to test by pushing the east or west button (depending on where I was previously), the dish then moved and it would automatically stop when the sat was found displaying a popup as seen in pix two, requesting a confirmation to save the sat location.

I also check LPB Baton Rouge at 11804 H 1250 8psk 87º and it came in tonight with the Lotto results.

[eastof111]

Had some time to quickly reconnect the bud to the A3 to scan AMC 8 - 139º to see how it did with the audio on the radio channels. It scanned in at 2:48. Some were scrambled and the ones in the clear played fine. Have to play some more with it to see how it sorts the radio channels, but have to upgrade the firmware, which I haven't done yet.

[el bandido]

How many radio channels did it scan? What is the total count for this satellite?
Have you verified that it is receiving AAC audio on these channels?

I noticed the price has came down already for the A3. I can get one for about $200.00 now. Probably in another month or two the A3 will be around $150-$200.00.
I would rather have the European version of the A3 instead of the American version with the factory default disappearing firmware. The Euro price is better and the features are the same.