If you cannot run one IR directly out of the 2117's micro plug 9do you mean mini plug? micros are seldom used with IR stuff), then you cannot make several of them work out of it.

Maybe your problem is that the IR output of the 2117 is actually too hot for the Xantech or its IRs, so either the Xantech receiver is overloading, or the components themselves may be overloading. I once had the combination of a Sony DSS and a Lexicon remote where I had to point the Lexicon at least 45 degrees away from the DSS to make it work reliably!

Try separating the rf receiver from the Xantech sensor. Try the tape trick again. Try not pointing the remotes directly at the rf device's pickup and see if reliability goes up.

Get a video camera, which can see IR, and see if you can tell anything about how bright the IR is from the factory remotes and from different stages of this thing.

Get a Palm Pilot and the graphing freeware that gives you a moving graph of IR received by the Palm Pilot.

Or, since the IR works and most RF repeaters seem to slow down response of the system, consider that RF might not be an upgrade.

Ernie