Mercury II Remote Control...

Powrline · #1 (**permalink**) 05-16-2007, 08:17 PM

I haven't read anything about this in anyone's posts, but it seems that my Mercury II remote control has only a 3-4 foot range. I have changed the batteries and pulled on the little springs that tension the AAA batteries, so that the connection in the battery box is the best that it can be.

I can sit on the floor in front of the receiver (3 feet away) and the remote works GREAT.

If I sit on the couch (6 feet away) the remote (mostly) doesn't work at all!

This is very aggravating when you are just trying to change a channel.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks

powrline

pictureon · #2 (**permalink**) 05-17-2007, 02:51 AM

It could be a receiver problem not remote.

pmb1010 · #3 (**permalink**) 05-17-2007, 06:48 AM

the receiver's IR device sensor might not be centered in the little plastic window.

You might try tipping the receiver's front edge up (or down) a bit from horizontal to see if it makes reception better.

Some of the more daring actually took their cover off, and moved the sensor inside the box for better range.

bill190 · #4 (**permalink**) 05-17-2007, 10:59 AM

My Mercury II remote works from across the room.

Could be bad remote/receiver.

Or I had a problem with a "remote extender" which allows you to operate the remote from another room. It was jambing the signals to my Mercury II. Once I turned it off, the Mercury II remote worked fine.

Jose47 · #5 (**permalink**) 05-17-2007, 12:32 PM

I had a similar situation with my stereo receiver remote. I thought the darn thing was broken but as it turned out the receiver was the problem. I do have a Mercury ll and the remote is good from 15' away.

wejones · #6 (**permalink**) 05-17-2007, 12:36 PM

I have no problems with the Mercury remote, either direct, from 8-10' away, or through my remote extender (RS pyramid), which is about 20' away.
Years ago, I had problems with my first Fortec receiver's remote (Lifetime). I think that it sometimes wouldn't work when the receiver was exposed to sunshine or computer screens. At that time, I started using a universal remote that worked better, however I've since gone back to using the original remote, with no problems, so I'm not sure what changed.

As mentioned above though, some IR signals do seem to be confused by nearby computers. I'm not sure if it's caused by light from the screen or if it is electromagnetic, however I can see it happening with my pyramid extender, since it has a little light the blinks whenever it sees signals from a remote. I will often see that little light blinking when there is no remote being used, and often I need to place the pyramid where it can't see my computer screen, or remotes won't work.

I have also had problems where remotes stop working only to find that one of my dozen or so remotes had a key stuck, or the keys were being pressed because I placed one remote on top of another remote. Once I even found that a remote I had put away in a drawer was blinking away, and locking up my remote extender so that other remotes wouldn't work.

bill190 · #7 (**permalink**) 05-18-2007, 09:22 AM

I tried several different remote extenders and they all had the same problem of blinking when no remote was being used. I found the problem was something from my entertainment center was emitting an rf frequency which made it blink!

That is I removed power from everything on my entertainment center and the blinking stopped!

So this is silly that a remote extender would not be able to filter out rf noise from these things and you need to place it near these things!

I solved the problem by placing both of my rf extender units in metal boxes, removing the antennas, and running a coax cable between the two. (Faraday cage around the whole works!)

They work just like a normal remote/receiver now - distance, etc. And no blinking when not using a remote.

wejones · #8 (**permalink**) 05-18-2007, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bill190

I tried several different remote extenders and they all had the same problem of blinking when no remote was being used. I found the problem was something from my entertainment center was emitting an rf frequency which made it blink!

That is I removed power from everything on my entertainment center and the blinking stopped!

So this is silly that a remote extender would not be able to filter out rf noise from these things and you need to place it near these things!

I solved the problem by placing both of my rf extender units in metal boxes, removing the antennas, and running a coax cable between the two. (Faraday cage around the whole works!)

They work just like a normal remote/receiver now - distance, etc. And no blinking when not using a remote.

I'm curious..... did you perhaps have more than one "type" of remote extender running? I've been running those RS pyramid things for years with few problems, however I once tried to add a different kind of extender, ie one of those things that works with OFA universal remotes, and/or one of the RS 2117 universal remotes (pretty much same thing under different label). I found that the darn things just weren't happy running at the same time. One would cause the other to lock up and go into constant blinking, and nothing would work on either system. The problems I had with just the RS pyramid picking up interferrence had nothing to do with RF, as it was the "transmitter" that was picking it up, and that only picks up IR, not RF. However I do think it's possible that it could be picking up low freq electromagnetic from cables and other electronics. I did find that the thing is real sensitive to microphonics. Any vibration around the pyramid will start it blinking.

Powrline · #9 (**permalink**) 05-19-2007, 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bill190

I tried several different remote extenders and they all had the same problem of blinking when no remote was being used.

I found the problem was something from my entertainment center was emitting an rf frequency which made it blink!

That is I removed power from everything on my entertainment center and the blinking stopped!

So this is silly that a remote extender would not be able to filter out rf noise from these things and you need to place it near these things!

I solved the problem by placing both of my rf extender units in metal boxes, removing the antennas, and running a coax cable between the two. (Faraday cage around the whole works!)

They work just like a normal remote/receiver now - distance, etc. And no blinking when not using a remote.

Well Bill, it seems that something was making the little light on the remote extender stay on. When I unplugged the cone (pyramid) remote extender, the Mercury II remote worked from across the room.

My solution was to plug the cone into another electrical socket and there was no constant light on the cone.

Problem? Electrical interferance from the many things plugged into the same outlet as the cone.

Solution? I unplugged the "eye" that goes in front of the receiver that rebroadcasts the actions from the remote extender transmitter, and moved the cone across the room and plugged it into another electrical socket so that now the cone sends the signal across the room as if the Mercury II remote were there, and not in another room changing channels.

Thank you all for your suggestions, they are greatly appreciated!

powrline

bill190 · #10 (**permalink**) 05-19-2007, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wejones

I'm curious..... did you perhaps have more than one "type" of remote extender running?...

No, just one model/brand at a time.

wejones · #11 (**permalink**) 05-19-2007, 01:10 PM

OK, interesting. If I understand correctly, it sounds like both bill90 and powerline describe interferrence with the receiver (ie the one that receives rf but sends IR). My problem was with the transmitter, ie the one that receives IR, and sends RF (and/or over powerlines, I was never quite sure). I have one of my receivers pretty far from anything electronic, so maybe that's why I don't have problems with it. It's about 20 some feet away from the things it controls. However my transmitter is close to my laptop and two scanners, and a spaghetti tangle of serial, USB, network and other computer cords. The cords don't seem to bother the transmitter, only the computer screen and microphonics.
Interestingly, using Windows I generally keep several screens up on my computer's desktop. A few years ago, I found that there was one specific program, that if I moved the mouse over that window, that it would cause my pyramid transmitter to blink. That doesn't seem to happen anymore for some reason. Not sure if it's because I'm using a different computer (different technology screen) or if I don't use that specific program anymore (can't remember what program it was). At that time though, I couldn't get my remotes to work reliably if the transmitter could see the computer screen. With my new computer, it doesn't seem to matter much.
I actually have 2 sets of pyramids running at the same time, with transmitters and receivers in different rooms. Have never had a problem with them interferring with each other, even when a transmitter can see a receiver (it always seemed to me that if a transmitter could see a receiver, that it would go into oscillation, where transmitter would see IR, start transmitting, receiver would see the RF and would send IR that the transmitter would see, ie a never ending cycle. However for some reason this never seems to happen. Not sure why.) But for some reason, whenever I try running an OFA extender, it locks up my pyramids.