In sci.electronics.repair, on Sat, 17 Sep 2022 11:45:10 -0700,
50 years is a long time. I've been watching tv for 50+ years but I
don't think that counts as much. And some of that time the remote used
tuning "forks" instead of IR.
>>recall seeing more than one or two remotes that put out an IR pulsed signal that also put out gibberish or the incorrect code at the same time.
>>IOW, if they transmitted IR, they were generally good. Could the powermid being seeing a signal too weak to reliably get the code read? I guess,
>>it depends on what the light means. It could mean signal detection or it could mean code readable.
>>
>>What if you take your remote directly to your DVDR?
Excellent idea. It's upstairs and sometime the food will get cold, but
still, I will do that next time. (Unless I forget, which will
probably happen the first couple times. IOW it will take a while to get
back to you all.)
> If it responds immediately, the DVDR and the hand unit are good and the powermid is bad. If
>>the DVDR doesn't respond immediately, the powermid is good and the hand unit or DVDR is bad.
>
>Those IR -> RF -> IR PowerMod relay devices are... well, rather evil, IMO.
>
>The design has a couple of limitations / vulnerabilities:
>
>(1) The IR receiver isn't very selective - it response to
> pulsed/modulated IR having a broad range of modulating
> frequencies. This is necessary in order to allow the device to
> work with a broad range of IR remotes, but it means that the IR
> receiver can be "swamped" by IR noise from other devices. In
> particular, some compact-fluorescent and LED lights seem to put
Well, I do have a lamp with an LED bulb in it in the kitchen where all
this tv stuff occurs. And sometimes it's on and sometimes it 's off,
so I will pay attention, and turn it off when there is a problem.
> out a bunch of modulated IR, and this can interfere with the
> detection of IR from a remote control. Worse, it can cause
> the IR receiver to start sending gibberish "remote control"
> signals via RF.
>
>(2) The RF receiver at the far end isn't very selective, either.
> As I recall it's tuned to a frequency in the 433 MHz ISM band,
> and the band-pass is pretty wide. As a result, RF noise in
> this band (even "hash" from computers, etc.) can cause the
> receiver to "think" it's seeing input from the IR module,
> and it will start spewing out meaningless IR pulses from
> its IR-transmitter dongles.
There's nothing much in the bedroom... wait. The ceiling fixture has
compact fluiorescents, and while they shouldn't be on when I'm
downstairs, maybe sometimes thay are.
>The combination of these two design weaknesses means that a PowerMid
>setup has a tendency to spew meaningless IR pulses into the
>A/V components at the receiving end. This can prevent proper
>repeating of IR from a remote control in another room, and it can
>also interfere with the proper detection of commands from an
>IR remote in the main viewing room.
It's good to know about these problems, so I won't change the batteries
when t hey are not the problem. The remote is wrapped up in plastic to
keep it clean when I'm eating, so that's even a bigger r eason, plus I
don't want to waste batteries. If it's the powermid, that's not great
but I can live with it.
At first I used to use, it might have been called Cricket. It had ssome
little green animal as the logo and the transmitter was much smaller.
It clipped on the end of the remote, and the receiver could go in the
other end of the bedroom and shine all across the room. That worked
well for a few years. I forget the eventual problem was.
For the powermid receiver I bought a wire with 3 beads at the end, but I
only use one, for the DVDR. I still have things to play on the VCR,
maybe eventually.
>Observe the PowerMid repeater "pyramid" for a while, when you
>know that nobody's using the system. If you see the "activity"
>light flicker, you have interference problems.
Okay