Sorry to hear you recieved a defective unit.
I had some problems when I first started using this type of device with my Palm 3.It turned out that I did not have the Palm trained properly.
For some devices I had to play with the cartrier frequency in the Omniremote software.
On some other devices the Palm would not learn the signals from an orginal remote for a device well enough to work consistently well,but it would from a universal remote with pre-programed codes in it.
It took some patience ,but I am sure glad I stuck it out,and got things working properly.
I truly believe that the Palm combined with this remote extender is the best value out there for a URC.

Dan