I have no interference problems. All of my devices work perfectly--and fast---via RF control with the MX-3000.

However, I cannot get the SA8300HD to work at all. Any tips for this? Can someone point me to a picture of the front panel to make sure I am over the IR port? I think I am. I used a flashlight to see it. However, it does not work at all.

Thoughts?

I was installing a MRF-250 today and had some trouble - perhaps it can help you.

I had IR blasters on an iPod dock, Arcam CD Player, Rotel Pre-amp and 2 Marantz CD Jukeboxes. The jukeboxes wouldn't respond. I would up taking the IR blasters off of the face of the Jukeboxes and secured them several inches away & the jukeboxes worked fine.

It seems the IR output was too powerful for the Marantz Jukeboxes.

Now if Marantz didn't use the sucky Philips based remotes with Toggle Bits - it would have been a great day........

There is supposely an overdrive problem with the SA 8300HD boxes. I say that because I haven't had the problem. Hank from URC just mentioned this at a training. Try black tape with a pinhole between the emitter and sensor. It could also be a positioning problem.

When I turned off the blaster on the front of the 250 and only sent out to the repeaters, I no longer have control over the Escient either. I know that the RF is getting to the 250, my Denon works perfectly and is very fast responding. I think that the blaster was bouncing inside the cabinet and controlling the Escient.

I moved the repeater for the 8300HD about 2" in front of the device and mounted it to the front cabinet door. Still no control at all.

I am only trying to control the SA8300, Escient DVDM-100 and the Denon 2807. The Denon works, the others do not.

Any suggestions?

Here's what I'd do:

1. confirm that the remote is controlling the equipment via IR

2. Take the repeater that is 100% known to work (the one off the denon) and put it on the front of the 8300 or Escient (make sure this repeater is set to emit all IR for all equipment) & Test

3. If that doesn't work - I'd hold the repeater at varying distances and test again.

4. If that doesn't work I'd be stumped......

I had an install last month which included a MRF-250 and SA8300HD. To the best of my recollection the IR emitter placement on the SA8300HD ended up being well to the left of the IR receiver window in order to get things working properly. Was hit or miss at first while testing until I found the proper placement.

And turn down the antenna gain to minimum.

I do have this working, but I had to turn down the emitter to almost (but not quite) minimum. At mid-point, it will overdrive it, but at the lowest setting it won't work either. Try something in-between. I did put the emitter right over the sensor, so that wasn't what did it.

I also used a Xantech emitter instead of URC, just because those tend to work the best for me in general. You may want to try that as well.

Many Scientific Atlanta cable boxes use a slightly different frequency modulation than standard IR repeater systems. I've only had to use these a few times, but this item may solve your issue. It's a $6 part from Russound.
[Link: positivemarketingav.com]

I dont know that vendor, just the first google hit i got when typing in 56k remod.

Luck!
-Zeke

Prompted partly from this thread and partly as I've been having unreliable control of one of my 8300HDs since moving my bedroom equipment into an enclosed cabinet with a glass door (maybe 50% reliability unless I paid close attention to where I aimed), I today setup a MRF-250 system for use with an MX-800. Using a flashlight to locate the 8300HD's IR emitter, I wired everything up and... no problems. Works like a charm, no overload, and for once I don't have to move my feet to make it work! :-)

Also solved a 5% reliability issue I had with a Panasonic XR57 receiver, which has the IR receiver located in the bottom left corner of the unit where it was partially obscructed.

I have similar issues with my personal 800 and MRF250 set-up. Some times I have to be sitting on one edge of the couch holding the remote in a particular spot in the air to control the SA8300 (which is in the other room) .

Funny thing is, I know what the problem is and how to fix it..... but I never feel like messing with my own stuff after a long day of tweaking clients stuff.