...but is continous flickering (not flashing) for more than 20 seconds "normal" for a PROP without a receiver hooked in. To me I would think it would go through it's boot sequence fine without a receiver hooked in, and thats as far as I would expect it to go.

the blaster (sound module) blinks then goes solid just fine (after i switched in the 1.05 CPU chip) - as the manuals state it should when working properly. The Booster and TLS are another story...