I have a universal remote. When the batteries get low, one of my devices still responds to the remote, but another device doesn't.
What would be the cause of this? I assume there is the same amount of electricity going to both devices since they both plug into the wall. Could it be that the infra red receiving unit in one of the devices is simply of lower sensitivity than the other one?
Some things have crap IR remotes - my Sony VCR needs the remote to be accurately aimed at point-blank range.
In the end I gave up and bought a DVB-T recorder.
Look on the bright side - in the days of ultrasonic remotes, a lorry going down the street applying air-brakes used to turn everyone's telly off.
...
Learning something new every day. Ultrasonic remotes? Never heard of this type until today. Turn out that's how they flipped channels in the 70s :) I wonder if some fine tuned whistles could also work on those? Like a 70s version of TV-be-Gone?
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I used to enjoy walking through the local David Jones TV department jangling a bunch of keys, watching their display TVs switch to random channels.
the squeak of closing blinds used to switch them off.
Then some can recall when the remote was connected with a cable !!
"Rheilly Phoull"
** Nothing wrong with that - just follow the cable to find the lost remote !!The one fitted to mid 60s Krieslers had brightness, volume and channel up/down - it even had a small speaker for private listening ( like a drive in ) and a mini jack for an earpiece.
The turret tuner in the set was driven around by an AC motor and stopped at pre-set positions, each channel had its own fine tune control. On the front panel were 12 indicator lights to show which VHF channel was on.
Channel surfing during commercials was brilliant innovation.
... Phil
Yeah, that was the one I was thinking of. The ideas are all old, only the methods are changing I reckon.
Rheilly
Threw one of those out three weeks ago when moving (manufactured just about when they stopped using valves)
Were those the remotes that had tuning forks in them? I remember having one of those, but I didn't think they were ultrasonic.
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I can remember seeing one of those around 1976 (when I was still young:), and was really impressed by it. Don't remember the brightness control but it had the inbuilt speaker, and the other goodies. A friend's elderly grandmother had it, as at her age she was confined to a chair for most of the day, and this was great for her not to have to get up to change channels, or turn the set down when the phone rang etc.
We still had a B&W Astor "Royal" set that you had to get up and change the channel, but with only 2 channels in our area at the time, it wasnt as big a drama as it would be now, where you can flip around about 15 or so, and still find nothing to watch.
As a teenager, I remember making up a "remote power switch" for the TV in my room, it involved a cable and a 240v switch.
The early remotes used a frequency discriminator to produce a signal voltage level which was decoded to the remote function.
Tuning forks probably preceeded an oscillator with a pushbutton selected resistor chan in the RC circuit.
From that point it doesn't matter whether the tones are carried to the TV by a cable or used to modulate the drive to an ultrasonic transducer.
That would be my guess.
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