All-in-One Remote

OK, so... I have a satellite TV receiver that comes with an all-in-one remote. The remote sends both RF and IR. The sat rcvr uses RF. The RF does not require line-of-sight to work.

The TV uses IR. IR needs line-of-sight or some reflected path to work. The TV is inside an Armoire and has only a half inch of side-to-side clearance. The face frame creates a smaller opening than the overall width of the interior. For viewing, this is not a problem since only the border of the TV is eclipsed by the face frame. From where I sit, the right edge is eclipsed. For where the wife sits, the left edge is eclipsed.

For some reason only known to Toshiba engineers, the IR remote sensor is in the lower left corner of the border and as such is eclipsed by the face frame of the armoire. If the wife doesn't hold the remote "just so", the sat rcvr gets the ON signal via RF but the IR ON signal doesn't reach the TV. The two are now out of sync. The ON and the OFF signals to the TV are identical so the TV/all-in-one doesn't differentiate between ON and OFF. The wife has an "OH SHIT" moment of clarity, re-positions the remote, and tries again. Now the all-in-one remote sends an OFF to the sat rcvr and the TV interprets the OFF as an ON. The TV goes ON while the sat rcvr goes OFF. The two are still out of sync. Repeatedly hitting power on the remote is your classic definition of insanity.

I have tried and tried to explain the what and the why to the wife, but female brains must work differently or female hearing must be selectively deaf to male voices. It is the lesser evil to simply yank the remote out of her hand (a crime punishable by a month in the doghouse), obscure the IR emitting from the front of the remote and push the button breaking the out-of-sync cycle, than it is to try to explain why it is out-of-sync.

Now somehow, I got saddled with the responsibility to make this technology work and in her mind, I have failed. Short of taking a saw to the face frame, or replacing the TV with one that has the IR sensor in a more logical place, can anyone suggest a way out of this dilemma? Trading in the wife for a more technologically savvy model is not an option.

Oh, and before someone comes up with the brilliant suggestion that I keep a second remote handy, while on the surface it may appear sound, the wife also calls me at work when she has got herself into this situation. If you think it is difficult/painful to do this while being in the room, you should try it over the phone. I should try a new career talking jumpers off the ledge.

I have used repeaters like this in similar situations.

Thanks for the suggestion. It looks like the dongle that sends the IR would stick to the IR sensor on the TV.

I have used repeaters in the distant past but they were for a very different application. They would send the IR signal over the video coax cable to a different room so that you could control a shared cable box from a second TV but that style would not work in this case as it would create a feedback loop.

You may not be using the correct Toshiba code.

Most likely you did a remote search for the first code that worked the Toshiba.

It would be best to try the codes in the manual , and if you did use the book, try the one below the one that worked first.

Sometimes a work around it to assign the TV as a AUX device, that can reduce conflicts.


Good Luck, You spoiled rat.