Hack RF into remotes?

I'm not familiar with this specific model but most of these merely repeat all 418MHz signals as IR.

The FCC ID number >The archives don't seem to be turning up pages for this.

Thanks Dave, that helps. The FCC ID on the remote is AA01502117. I'd search for it on fcc's site but it appears be offline (or too busy to answer).

Hope your health is well and thanks again.

-Bill Kearney

It's fairly simple to add RF to most IR remotes. The 4-pin RF transmitter modules shown at

need +5V, GND & DATA. The IR signal is usually sufficient although range is less than optimal because the RF transmitter is operating at the IR carrier duty cycle. The transmitter turn on/off time is less than 1 µs and the pulses in a 40kHz IR carrier are ~12.5µs at 50% duty cycle. You can filter the carrier but that will usually reduce the amplitude and you'll need to amplify it to trigger the RF transmitter. The upper portion of the circuit shown at will work for this. Most RF receivers will not turn off so fast so they will output the DATA signal w/o the 40kHz pulses.

Curious, I also looked up the Hughes remote I have for a DirecTV receiver ( OZ5HNS1026824 ). Apparently it uses 418 Mhz, which is what the Pronto units use as well, isn't it? I wonder what sort of signal it's 'shark fin' antenna puts out? The schematic for which is:

There are 18 (out of over 400) 418MHz devices from X10. With part numbers beginning with B4S. Don't know what they are.

So it would seem the devices I've got are all on 430MHz.

I did a little testing and found the 15-2117 base station also listens to an old 15-2925 RF remote I had lying around. The FCC ID of which pulls up a record showing it uses 430MHz, not 418MHz

I should note the FCC site is VERY picky about what FCC ID string it will search on. The device says "MG3-15-1925T" and you have to search on "MG3" and "-15-1925T". A search on "AAO" and "1502117" brings up nothing. But a search on just "AAO" brings up 1682 results. Strangely the AAO and 1502117 combination didn't not work but it clearly shows that on the results pages.

'AAO1502117' This is also listed as using 430 MHz.

What this doesn't tell me, however, is the FCC ID of the base station. But is handy to see the schematics of the remote!

Any idea how to determine the FCC ID of the base station? It has no ID listed on it's exterior, just the 15-2117 part number and a white label reading "05A03". The PCB inside reads "Universal Electronics, Rev 4

03/26/99 JM, SMT RX/IR TX" and nothing else. There's an RF can inside it where, presumably, the RF receiver is housed.

A search on AAO at 430.0MHz brought up 3 results for remotes: AAO1501935, AAO1501995 and AAO1502117. Searching on just the frequency brought up only

26 results! From Kenwood, Alpine, Universal, Kenetics, Alps, Comtex and Honda? it appears most might be for the visor-mounted tranmitters many cars come with these days.

-Bill Kearney

I suppose it would also help to ask if anyone makes a 430MHz receiver module I could add to something like a usb-uirt or other IR-to-PC interface.

ALL OF YOUR X-10 DEVICES USE 310MHZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

B4SMR20A = 310MHz B4SSR12A = 310MHz B4SUR47A = 310MHz etc., etc., etc.

There are approximately 170 devices listed on the FCC search site under X-10's B4S grantee code - NONE use 430MHz.

And that's not what I meant. It's a learning process here, sorry if it's too tedious or too slow.

I've got a mix of X10 and Radio Shack stuff. The Radio Shack 15-2117 remotes all use 430MHz. I'd like to find a way, if at all possible, to have a PC receiver pickup those signals directly instead of going through an IR base station. I like these remotes, I have several of them and, probably most importantly, SHE likes them. When presented with a UR47A, of which I actually have more of than the RS remotes, she made a face (and not a happy one). The WAF should never be left out of any gadgetry schemes.

Thus my questions about what the X10 receivers use. Like knowing whether or not it might be possible to put a 430Mhz receiver into an mr26a, jr21a or some other X10 PC device like a CM19A or CM15A?

If not an X10 interface then perhaps from some other supplier. USB preferably but an rs232 one that will work reliably with a usb-to-serial adapter would be ok. I'm out of 232 ports and usb's the only way to get more on the setup I've got.

When I look for receiver boards I see plenty of stuff for 433.92 Mhz but haven't seen anything for just 430MHz.

Part of the reason for wanting to avoid the RF-to-IR base station is it's shitty signal pickup. It seems to have far too much sensitivity to noise.

I suppose a different way to approach this might be to change the RF transmitters in the remotes. I'd be willing to give that a try if a PC receiver could reliably pick up the keys the remotes send. And that transmitters could be had at reasonable prices.

So, is there anything for a PC that will receive 430MHz signals from these remotes? Can an existing PC receiver for remotes be easily modified to listen to 430Mhz and handle the remote's signals?

If not, then has anyone changed the tranmitter in the RS 15-2117 (8-in-1 series) remotes to have it work with some other PC receiver?

Thanks everyone, for your help and continued patience.

-Bill Kearney

[snip]

And I'm trying to help you but you had confused the issue immensely. Nearly all of your questions could be answered by reading the many appnotes I've published at

It would have been easier had you started the thread with this message.

I've never seen the RS 15-2117. All of the X-10 remotes (e.g. the UR47A) have a daughterboard for the RF transmitter. If the RS 15-2117 also uses a daughter board, swap them and you now have a RS 15-2117 that sends 310MHz RF and a UR47A that sends 430MHz. However, you will have no easy way to change the codesets unless the 15-2117 is programmable. (And before someone suggests JP1, I did specify EASY.)

RF transmitter modules are readily available in certain frequencies but

310MHz and 430MHz are not among them. The RF receivers I prefer are tunable over a fairly wide range (e.g. I've retuned from 300MHz to 350MHz.) See...

The MR26A (and JR21A) use discrete components in their RF receiver circuits. It is not a daughterboard so you cannot replace it. It can be retuned but probably not to 430MHz from 310MHz. (They use the same circuit at 433.92MHz in the RemoteWonder and I have retuned that to 418MHz.) The CM15A uses third party daughterboards for all RF. They are easily replaced. The manufacturers datasheet for the RF receiver indicate it can be tuned to 418MHz and also gives values of components to change for 433.92MHz. However, the CM15A firmware will only report standard X-10 and CR14A codes. See...

The MR26A will only report standard X-10 RF plus a few codes that you've already discovered.

I have designed a generic RF receiver module that can report almost any RF codeset but I've only programmed PICs for the X-10 codeset (standard, security, my extensions, CR14A, Digimax 210). I have no idea what codeset your RS 15-2117 uses so do not know whether that codeset could also be incorporated. Do you have a Pronto or PDA that you could use to learn the codes from the RS 15-2117? I've detailed simple methods for capturing IR or RF codes at...

However, my design is an RS232/RS485 device and I have no intention of designing a USB version as that adds more cost than the basic module. It should work with any USB/serial adapter.

But, in addition to finding a way to input the RF, you need applications on the PC to receive and interpret them.

If you like the RS 15-2117 and you can figure out a way to program it to send X-10 RF, I would suggest adding a 310MHz transmitter module (liberated from a UR47A) _IF_ there is room inside the 15-2117. You can connect it in parallel with the existng RF circuit and send both 430MHz and 310MHz. Battery life will be affected but RF transmitters usually use less than 5mA.

Alternately, if the receiver for the RS 15-2117 is tunable, you can use a Pronto TSU3000 or TSU7000 and buy an MR26E (European version). Tune the MR26E to 418MHz (from 433.92MHz) and tune the RS 15-2117 receiver to 418MHz (from 430MHz). (If the RS 15-2117 receiver is not tunable, maybe it can replaced with one for 418MHz.) You can buy a refurb TSU3000 for $190; the TSU7000 costs considerably more. This allows you to use whatever apps you already have to work with the MR26A and RS 15-2117. NOTE: The MR26E will not report the RF from any of your X-10 devices since they all send 310MHz.

In essence, you're asking for a custom device. It's the type of thing that can be done but, to be blunt, it requires skills you probably lack (based on this thread). You could pay someone to do it but it might be cheaper to replace the wife. ;)

The 15-2117 are JP-1 remotes and it's not /that/ hard to work with it. The xmitters are on daughter boards. I will take a look at yanking the xmitter from a UR47A and grafting it into a 15-2117. That may well be exactly the fix needed, from a transmitter compatibility perspective. Until I do that there's no easy way to know about the codeset compatibility.

Yes, I saw your notes on this. If a 433.82 Mhz unit can be tuned down to

430MHz then it'd probably be worth looking into. But if the daughterboards can be swapped then it might not be necessary to even bother with changing anything in an X10 receiver.

manufacturers

Excellent, this saves me a LOT of effort in cracking open all those little cases. If you get to doing any web page editing I'm sure it'd really help others to have the above text on there.

Knowing that a Remote wonder is on 433 and can be tuned to 418 might make it a very interesting candidate for a receiver alternative. In fact, if it could be tuned to 430 instead of all the way down to 418 then it might REALLY be a solution, assuming the software listening to it can decipher the codeset.

Does the ATI remote receiver have any brains in it? Or does it just pass along the data stream?

What I've discovered is based soley on having a JR21A mouseremote receiver. I do not have an MR26A and if it can't receive at least all of what the JR21A already handles then I may not even bother with an MR26A (or E for that matter)

I do not have a Pronto. But since they're JP-1 units is there a way to convert the codes that way?

Girder is quite adept at transmogrifying inbound serial data. If a receiver can see the data and pass it along as serial then Girder can do pretty much anything with it.

Ah, now that's an even more interesting idea. I'm not sure there's room for both but it'd be worth a try.

The base station receiver is inside an RF can on the bottom of the circuit board. It does, however, have a point for tuning it. I don't know how wide a range of frequencies it can span however.

It's integated along with the rest of the IR circuit on the same board. The board's single sided and it's not a very complex ciruit. But getting this base station to receive other RF isn't all that useful. The point here is to avoid the base station RF-to-IR being fed into the IR-to-PC steps.

If an ATI remote could be 'detuned' to 430Mhz (and it seems reasonable that it can since you got it all the way down to 418) and the codeset from it can be recognized by girder that might be the 'least hassle' situation. It'd require buying an ATI remote receiver (can they be had alone?) and tuning it. But it wouldn't require cracking the remotes and changing their xmitters.

Yes, and this is why I'm using USB. I'm fine with using multiple detectors, I just don't have enough native COM ports to fit them all. I've looked at the Pronto units and, at this point, they would be a detour from the current plan. I have RF remotes that work and are understood. I also have LCD touchpads running Netremote that control everything via 802.11g. They basically do all of what a Pronto would do as well as being capable of web browsing, bidirectional playlist controls and the like. If I didn't have the LCD touchscreens then yes, the Pronto units would be something to consider.

No, to be blunt, it's not beyond my skills set. It's only beyond someone's skill set if they lack ability and information. I already have the ability and you've provided the information. I don't have an oscilliscope so retuning things would be a bit tricky but I can always borrow one from a friend.

I'll start by putting a 310MHz transmitter from a ur47a into a 15-2117. If that works AND the jr21a can receive a reasonably complete set of codes from it then I'll go with it. If I can get an ATI remote's receiver tuned AND it recognizes a likewise reasonably complete set of codes then that might be the best long-term solution.

Thanks for the info, it clears up a number of questions I had (or would eventually have)

-Bill Kearney

It's unlikely that you will find that an RF receiver/decoder designed for one remote will report the codeset for another remote. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of protocols and many billions of codes. The RemoteWonder (and, IIRC, the MouseRemote) even uses two separate protocols. IOW, all of the remote receiver/decoders (e.g MR26, RemoteWonder, MR21) have "brains" to filter out the billions of other protocols & codes and to filter out the continuous white noise that is output from most RF receiver circuits in the absence of a signal. The MR26 and MR21 both use a PIC12C508A but with different firmware fot their different codesets.

The only ones that do not are IR receivers like Irman and others that copied what Ties Bos did with it. They output a unique hex string that is independent of the protocol/code and allow the user to define the meaning of the output using application software like Girder. IR receivers do not output noise in the absence of a signal - the same technique will fail with RF.

I think JP1 is too limited (by several orders of magnitude) and so do not waste my time with it. I can create and translate CCF, LIR, GC-100 and a few others but you'll have to check with someone else to see whether there is a translation utility for what you want.

The CM17A, CM19A, RemoteWonder, Lola & ??? all use USB and Cypress microcontrollers. The SDK for the Cypress controller is $500. Few will be willing to spend $500 to rewrite the firmware. I'm trying to design a replacement CM15A circuit using a PIC since I and many others already have the development tools needed for that.

My CM15A page is intended for those who want to use it "as is" with an improved antenna or may want to use my plug & play replacement circuit when (and if) it's ready. Anyone interested in retuning the RF receiver (and competent to do so) will understand the HiMark data sheet so I see no need to edit my text.

Sometime after the first of the year there _may_ be a source once again for the small 310MHz transmitter illustrated on my Pronto conversion page. It's probably easier to fit inside your 15-2117 than the one from the UR47A.

Like I said, you need a custom solution - there is no other way. If you cannot program a PIC so that you can create your own based on the MR26A/E, you'll need to reprogram or replace the wife.

How many of the codes sent by the 15-2117 are RF? If the set isn't too big and you can loan me a remote for a few days I will capture the codes and see whether they can be >> I've never seen the RS 15-2117. All of the X-10 remotes (e.g. the UR47A)

Sometimes you get lucky. I'm hoping...

Ah, that sheds important light on the situation. I suspected the jr21a was doing something to differentiate between the jr20a mouseremote and other x10 RF signals. I don't (yet) have an mr26a so that's why I asked about it. If the jr21a (mousremote) receiver can pickup enough of what the ur47a puts out then there's no need for me to go buy an mr26a. That is unless the mr26a has the ability to listen to what the 15-2117 puts out.

In checking the transmitter styles, the UR47A operates differently that the

15-2117. The 15-2117 doesn't pull the enable line high in the same manner as the UR47A.

I have an Irman. I've asked them whether or not the current version of it can be hacked to accept an RF signal. They don't know. I may have to fall back on hacking the IR output of the 15-2117 base station into the Irman directly.

No argument there! It's handy but certainly can't do everything.

Agreed, it appears to be yet another case of "make the SDK expensive so we won't have to field a lot of questions from newbies". One can't argue with their overall logic as phone support is expensive and you do want to avoid having to support a legion of unprofitable newbies. But any decent vendor learns to recognize who's valuable in the 3rd party community and provides them with low or no cost tools. Better to give someone like you a freebie than expect to make any profit off it.

Yes, I'm following that thread of conversations.

The RF board from the ur47a is fairly small. It's rectangular in shape unlike the huge circle the puck from the 15-2117 uses. There appears to be enough space in the case of the 15-2117 to fit the ur47a's board. Once I pin down what pins of the ur47a's board correspond to those on the 15-2117 I'll be able to test it.

I've done PIC programming in the past. As I exhaust the alternatives I may well look into doing it again.

The 15-2117 seems to echo whatever's sent on the IR signal, so everything it sends as IR is also sent as RF to the base station. I do have a spare (along with a base station) and if I can't figure this out soon enough I'll look into sending you the set.

Thanks again Dave!

-Bill Kearney

The puck inside of the 15-2117 has a four pin connector. Only two of which are labelled: GND xx xx VDD.

A picture of which can be found here:

And it's schematic here: The details for the B4SUR47A are also listed:

'B4SUR47A' Along with it's schematics: Wow, that FCC site is just pretty damn amazing.

The RF board in the UR47a also has four pins but not in same configuration (three together, one separate). The pins on it are labelled as +V, 0V, Enable and SIG. The pins on the 15-2117 are VDD, IR, RF Test and GND.

I checked the signals and they're not handled the same way. That is, the

15-2117 appears to leave the RF enabled full time (not a surprise). Piggybacking the ur47a's board on the puck drew no fruitful results. Just didn't work. I did teach the 15-2117 an IR signal and compared them, so they're both presumably sending the 'same' IR just not the same RF. Ah well, it was fun trying. I suppose there's a way to construct a circuit to handle the intergration but space inside the remote is probably too tight.

So I'll have to drop back to using the IR base station. Ah well.

-Bill Kearney