Re: Frustration with X10 Powermid

[km@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I have done some new experiments.

I decided to take the Powermid transmitter outside my apartment, and
found that the LED glowed even brighter outside. I then drove it a few
miles in each direction and got the same results consistantly. In my
car I used an AC inverter to power it, but I also just plugged it into
AC at various outdoor power sockets. The results were very consistant.

I took it over to a nearby office building and tried it at various
points in the building. In the interior the LED was dark, but at points
near the exterior or near windows it glowed.

In my aprartment there is no spot where the LED stays dark. It's a
brick building constructed in the 1950's, which I presume has walls
that provide less shielding  than the  the new office building.

I don't know if there is something special in my area transmitting at
418mhz, or if this is typical. My guess is that it's not that unusual,
and that most people have better shielding. Even in my apartment the
background LED glow does not cripple operation with most of my IR
devices. I started into this because just  one of my IR controlled
devices would not work either through the Powermid, or even directly
when the Powermid transmitter was on. Most of the others work but are
intermittent at times.

Probably an unlucky device, poor shielding in the walls, and an unknown
RF source painting the neighborhood.

I have tried a Terk a year back which operates at 433mhz and it was
similarly balky. It was a short test, and at the time I didn't test for
background glow outdoors. Either that background is over the whole
418-433 range, or these devices are not real discriminating by
frequency.

I was going to try a URC-9910, but I see its also at 433 which is
discouraging. (Also they seem to be in very short supply).

I really seem to be stuck. I wish someone would make an 802.11 device.
That would allow generating the IR sequence from a laptop/pda as well
as from a matched 802.11 repeater, and also work more reliably.