I'm glad (well,maybe I should say relieved) to see that others are having trouble using the Dishplayer power function in macros. It has been driving me crazy.I almost gave up.
I have a Radio Shack 15-1994 and it displayed this same behavior. The learned key would work by itself but not in a macro.
I tried reordering it in sequence with no effect. As others have said it did work occasionally but for no apparent reason and 99% of the time would not work at all.
Thanks to all on this thread for their suggestions. I tried them all but nothing was successful for me. Not even Wayne's 'pecking' fix.
Then an obvious solution struck me that I had not considered before. I would learn the power off function from the wireless keyboard. It worked!!!
I had to try a number of times and in the end had to hold the remote about 8" away to get the 2 confirmation flashes. Perservance prevailed!
Now it works perfectly in my power sequence. So, on to the next challenge.