Weather Star 4000 Hardware

[TWCmatthew]

I recently acquired a Weather Star 4000 from ebay. Here are a few pictures I took of the unit, both exterior and interior. From what I understand, since the 4000 has no hard drives, (unlike the XL), it downloads it's graphics via satellite connection to the AMC 11.

[Zach]

Right, its graphics are downloaded via satellite.

[TWCmatthew]

Now I'm looking for a C-band dish and satellite receiver, in addition to the VideoCipher II that I bought. Hopefully I can get the 4000 and XL to display weather data.

[Zach]

the VCII is completely hit-or-miss. It needs to be authorized in order to function properly.

[TWCmatthew]

the VCII is completely hit-or-miss. It needs to be authorized in order to function properly.

VCII systems aren't being authorized (and hasn't since 2008.) Do you think a DigiCipher 2 would work?

[Zach]

the VCII is completely hit-or-miss. It needs to be authorized in order to function properly.

VCII systems aren't being authorized (and hasn't since 2008.) Do you think a DigiCipher would work?

DigiCiphers are expensive, but it's up to you. I don't know if their backwards compatible though.

[TWCC_Travis E.]

I've heard a rare story or two about someone getting their hands on a 4000. What would be really cool is if someone managed to reverse-engineer it and maybe find a way to load their own homebrew software on it. That'd be a tall order and may require expensive equipment (I don't know much about the specifics), but with so many other devices being reverse-engineered/jailbroken, I wouldn't call it impossible. Of course, the general non-availability of the 4000s would be an obstacle as well.

[techknight]

Oh, you mean like what I did? :-)

[TWCC_Travis E.]

You know what, I'm more than two years late to the party but just now happened to catch wind of your reverse-engineering efforts (unfortunately, I haven't logged into this forum in ages and never received a notification on this thread—in fact, I no longer remember writing my above post!). Anyway, incredibly cool stuff, and I'm still in the process of going through all the blog posts and YouTube videos, trying to catch up on all the gory details!