We wanted our remote for our new STB to be good enough to point at out projector screen and bounce back to work the box which is on shelves behind us. All our other gear can be operated this way. (Well, I mean to say, you can't take your eyes off the screen to look around and aim it. You might miss that important eye-gouge mightn't you?) The round trip for the beam would be 10 metres.

I have tried putting aluminium foil behind the IR LED to reflect the beam forwards rather the wasting photons inside the case. That worked with another remote. Have you modified your new LED torch this way yet? Take care not to "short" the leads.

I have experimented with magnifying lenses in front of the sensor and a foil funnel there too.

(AND yes,I have tried fresh batteries.)

Little if any improvement.

The sensor is behind ruby plastic but as the STB is under warantee I do not want to mess e.g. with making a hole.

I am offering an hearty handclasp for the best suggestion and millions of other remote-masters will be indebted! Forget about painting the house this Easter.

Might help if you repost in the HT subforum - plenty of RCU questions get posted there

That bit of ruby plastic is supposed to be fairly transparent to infrared light, but I know that one STB brand has used plastic that is STRONGly opaque at infrared frequencies and popping off the plastic cover can make a significant increase in sensitivity. In fact with one such DVB-s receiver, taking the bezel off so the IR receiver was unfiltered allowed me to successfully control the STB from another room, even when pointing the remote away from the direction of the doorway.

I can't say if that would be the case with your receiver or not.

Thanks people.

I will re-post in the HT area, wait a coupla days, then try surgery on the STB ruby plastic if necessary.

CONGRATULATIONS DR.P.
YOU HAVE WON THE HEARTY HANDCLASP.


Being quite simple to open up our unit I laid out the small circuit board for the sensor free of the rest and BINGO it is as sensitive as I could wish. Not quite 100% back off the screen but 100% if aimed at the ceiling.

BTW the sensor is a three lead chip with a 4mm black dome on one side facing out from the STB. The dome had a sort of cage of black plastic in an "+"over it which I carefully removed to expose more surface area to the IR.