I used to think Chieta switches were the absolute best, until the last time I ordered some. They came in packaging like that shown in post #3, but in this day of color laser printers it would be pretty easy for a counterfeit maker to duplicate the original packaging rather closely. The ones I got had weird problems; on one port #4 was dead and on a couple of the others I was having weird issues with interference in the signals, which I can't say with 100% certainty was attributable to the switches but we had a lot less trouble after I switched to some Davey GDSW41's. Since I got the Chieta's from a seller on eBay they may in fact have been fakes, and then again it's possible that the interference issues subsiding about the time I changed the switches was coincidence, but still at this point I would not spend the extra money on Chieta switches unless I could get them from a reputable dealer that offered a warranty.
Those switches were just one of the purchases made for the satellite backend project that were later regretted. But I am not saying that all Chieta switches are bad, in fact I used my original one for several years without any problems whatsoever, which is the main reason I thought staying with that brand would be a good idea.
i'll bet maybe 1% of current fta people realized that (I certainly didn't). that 1.5db of extra loss for nothing could make for a non-watchable program.
