Originally posted by gwright
Yes Red I realize that, but mucho talk about this charger versus that charger,.. yada yada,.. and if all you need is something to charge and/or discharge a little reciever pack, it really doesn't matter, the cheapest of the available chargers will do it just as well. I think it's sort of strange that someone would think about a 250 dollar charger just to charge reciever packs . Sort of like researching for a month to find the best 12 guage shotgun because you have flies in your house,.. you just need to buy a flyswatter for that 
for the price of the alpha 4 you can have the low-end schulze 330, and have $80 left over, plus have a lot more capabilities. The alpha 4 was great for what was intended, and when it was designed, but it's out of date and overpriced considering other things that are available now. About the only "advantage" it would have is the 4 ports, but,.. using those all at once limits you to a 250mah rate per port, so you could just spend $40 on wall warts and do the same job.
Your idea of what market the Alpha is intended for is just skewed. Its easy to say the Alpha 4 is useless, unless you fit into the category where the Alpha is just about the only charger that works well. And thats up poor old giant scale pilots with the larger aerobatic planes. Unfortunately, there just isn't a vialble solution for us unless we spend twice the price of an Alpha 4.
$40 worth of wall warts for us is totally useless. We typically fly
NiCad or NiMh packs in the 1600mah to 3000mah range. Each of our planes have at minimum 3 battery packs, usually 3 for the most part, and many have 4 packs. My 40% Extra 330 is a typical plane, with dual 2700mah packs for the receivers, and a 2150mah pack for the ignition. Add in a transmitter, and I need those 4 ports. Couple this with the fact I usually fly two of giant scale planes at an event or meet, new I have 7 to 8 batteries to charge at the end of the day.
I would need more than $40 worth of wall warts. I would need wall warts that have 200mah to 400mah rates, which I havent seen yet. The wall warts will not discharge and capacity check my packs. I would also need 120v ac, or a charger that will run off 12v in addition to the wall warts. The Futaba wall warts at Tower Hobbies run about $20 each, or $80 for the capability of 200mah total output for 4 ports. It would take forever to charge the packs, and certainly not overnight. Maybe in a couple days though, it it fully charges them at all. For a 2700mah pack, its little more than a trickle charger.
Now, what does the Alpha 4 does buy us giant scale pilots. Convenience. I can connect my 3 aircraft packs, and the transmitter, put it on charge, and in the morning, everything will be ready. It allows me the capability of fast charging at the field up to a max 1amp rate if needed. However, with dual 2700mah packs, its rare I would ever get in enough flights to even warrant a field charge. Even on a day where I get in the max flights I can. It gives me the capability of properly maintaining and checking my batteries, with cycling, form charges, capacity checking, a built in ESV, etc.
With two Alpha 4 chargers, I can fly two airplanes all day long (up to around 20 or more flights), connect up the airplanes at the end of the day, and forget about them till the next morning. They will be charged and ready for another uninterrupted day of flying. No field charging, no fast charging, and continuous operation. And when I need to maintain the batteries, the Alpha 4 will do that as well in the shop. And all ports operate autonomously, as one can be discharging, charging, or maintaining the batteries independently.
I have tried to match these capabilities with other solutions. There are none that do not require carrying multiple units, spending more dollars, playing move the charger from battery to battery all night long, or accepting less functionality. The Alpha fits the giant scale aerobatic market almost perfectly, with the exception of the 1amp limit. We just learn to live with that my using large packs (nice to have reserve anyway), and performing a C10 charge during the night while we sleep.
If one takes the time to understand the need for pilots that have a couple big airplanes, each with 3 or 4 batteries in them, one can quickly see why there are people that stand in line to get the Alpha 4's. Try to find another solution with the same features for the same price as an Alpha 4. So far, no one has been able to come up with an alternative.