Well I took it apart and there is a coiled antenna inside of it (you can see it through the slot in the back) I attached a telescopic antenna to it and the range seems to be the same if not slightly worse with this modification. I didn't have much time to mess with it though (only an hour or so). I was thinking that the coil was "tuned" to the frequency of the RF but if the Phillips guys said to straighten it out then that can't be it. I was also thinking to add a RF boosted antenna to it that was specialized to the frequency that the remote is sending out. Well like I said I haven't given up yet and I'll post more when I have more.