Many of you have pointed out to me that obtaining proper focus is CRITICAL.
But my case is (at least I believe it) slightly different. After a few more
hours of experiencing here are the bare-bone facts:

1. After power-up the 201XT always finds "br34" or "br33" - even in a
totally dark environment, say - sealed in a black photographic bag, and is
the same as exposed to direct light.

2. After getting a dark frame it does always read "br00", no matter what I
do - expose it to a focused star or artifical light or completely darken
the barrel.

3. After finding a position it sticks to it (in the last case after booutp
it found "br34 at 97" and both values remained the very same whatever I
did, moved the scope, removed completely the 201XT, exposed to direct light
or completely darkened etc.

In my interpretation this means a faulty comm line between the TC211 and the
buffer, most possibly the operation amplifier (uA for electro-techies ;)
which can be either the one in the TC211's serial register readout line or
the second stage amplifier chip on board. Buffer memory, PIC and decoders
should be OK, else the whole stuff would behave erratically. Memory
transfers work fine, see operational dark-framing.

And to clear the fog of my rather mysterious "opaque scotch tape technique"
:) Simply attach a piece of self-adhesive opaque (semi-transparent) tape at
the end of te 1.25" barrel of the scope. You can easily find and focus a
bright star on this "screen". After removing the tape and attaching the
201XT the focus has to be shortened (moved "inwards") with the exact amount
of the CCD <-> barrel-edge distance, which can be quite easily measured. At
this point the 201XT is at least in a rough focus.

Btw, I have decided to send the stuff back to Meade... Hope that they will
explain me later what was wrong...

Regards: - Mr Attila Tozser -

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