I'm a newbie and am needing some help understanding how remote controls (RF in particular) work.
The device to be controlled: RS-232/TTL controlled mp3 player
Remote control: RF based with number 0-9, pause, mute, volume+ and volume- (very simplistic)
What I'm struggling with are the mechanics of how a keypress gets encoded into a specific data string, tranmitted to the receiver, decoded then sent via TTL to the player. Say I press #9 on the remote which translates to "Start playing MP3 #9." If I know the player expects 02h 09h 0dh to start playing mp3, how do I get button #9 to send this? Is this the function of the encoder/decoder? Does it need to be written into a PIC or a basic stamp? Is this button mapping done on the remote control (transmitter) or receiver? I see rf kits that include a remote control with RF encoder/tranmitter as well as a matched RF receiver/decoder but I'm not sure where the button mapping is done.
Also, I the RF chips I see reference channels - 2, 4, 6 and 8. How is a channel defined and how do I determine how many I need?
Any help would be appreciated, Kevin