# DirecTV Technician Says RF Remotes No Longer Work With H23 Receivers



## 4barrell (Oct 26, 2004)

My uncle has DirecTv service. He has a H23 receiver that he has been using for a couple of years in RF mode with three remote controls (RC64R) that he uses to change channels in different parts of his house. He also has an RF converter hooked to the back of the H23 to send a signal using coax to 2 older analog TVs in other parts of his house. That way he can watch the same programming in other parts of the house as is being watched on the TV where the H23 is located. The day after Christmas, all 3 RC64R remotes stopped working the H23 receiver. The menu in his H23 receiver still showed the receiver to be in RF remote mode. He can change it to IR mode and use an IR remote and the H23 will respond perfectly. Of course he cant change channels in other parts of the house with it in IR mode. When it is changed back to RF mode, it will not work with any of the RC64R remotes. We went as far as reprogramming the RC64R remotes again with the proper code and it still would not work. He called DirecTv on Monday and they sent a technician to his home today. My Uncle told me the technician played with it for almost an hour and then told him that new updates were recently sent out to all H23 receivers which disabled RF mode on all the receivers, even though the RF option still shows up in the remote control setup in the H23 menu. The technician told him he can no longer use RF remotes with the H23 receivers. The technician then left.

I told my Uncle that I believed that the technician had either lied to him, was incompetent, or full of **** and just did not want to replace the receiver. Before my Uncle calls DirecTv to demand that they send him out another receiver, I want to confirm whether or not the RF remote control feature has indeed been disabled by firmware updates in H23 receivers. Thanks in advance.


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## davring (Jan 13, 2007)

i know this may sound out in left field, but if you have cordless phones in you're house, try unplugging the base. I had two different wireless thermometers, a wireless rain gauge and my D* RF remote all stop working. I didn't realize they had all stopped before I had replaced batteries in different devices with no results. I first suspected my router and then thought of the phone. Everything came back to life after unplugging the base station. I replaced the phone system, all is well again.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

While I don''t have a H23, I do have several other receivers running the new software and RF still works.
I think I'll throw the BS flag on this play.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

davring said:


> i know this may sound out in left field, but if you have cordless phones in you're house, try unplugging the base. I had two different wireless thermometers, a wireless rain gauge and my D* RF remote all stop working. I didn't realize they had all stopped before I had replaced batteries in different devices with no results. I first suspected my router and then thought of the phone. Everything came back to life after unplugging the base station. I replaced the phone system, all is well again.


having a new Christmas present makes more sense than this "tech" does.


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## bigtom (Jan 23, 2009)

If DIRECTV intended to disable RF remote functionality on the receiver, I do not have a doubt that the option for RF would have been removed from the remote settings menu as well.

There would likely be another issue.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

I have no idea, but for those who do, your posting the precise software version for each receiver your father has may well be helpful.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Laxguy said:


> I have no idea, but for those who do, your posting the precise software version for each receiver your father has may well be helpful.


"I think" I've had every version here without any RF issues.


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## sonofcool (Dec 23, 2007)

Sounds to me like an RF interference issue from a source in either in your uncle's house or from one of his neighbors (if they are very close).


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

The DirecTV rf remotes operate somewhere around 430MHz on a shared basis with other radio services. They can be impacted by a variety of other radio services. If you read the fine print, it says that they "cannot cause interference to any other device, and must accept interference from any other device".

I would suspect that some other source of RF emission in your area (and it could be some distance away) is causing the problem. For example, the rf remote uses milliwatts of power (perhaps even less), while a licensed radio might be transmitting 10, 50, or even 1000 watts of power on the same frequency or a very close frequency. It could also be some other shared rf device, such as wireless speakers in a neighbors house, etc. That's one of the problems with wireless (anything). Too much potential for interference.


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## jes (Apr 21, 2007)

I have an H23 using RF... worked fine yesterday... +1 for tech BS.

The fact that is stopped the day after Christmas might be a clue that a neighbor got something for Christmas with a sloppy transmitter... That said, the RF remotes should still work in close proximity to the H23 unless the RF interference is really high power, in which case the remotes not working are probably the least of your Uncle's concerns. :eek2:


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## jes (Apr 21, 2007)

carl6 said:


> The DirecTV rf remotes operate somewhere around 430MHz on a shared basis with other radio services. They can be impacted by a variety of other radio services. If you read the fine print, it says that they "cannot cause interference to any other device, and must accept interference from any other device".
> 
> I would suspect that some other source of RF emission in your area (and it could be some distance away) is causing the problem. For example, the rf remote uses milliwatts of power (perhaps even less), while a licensed radio might be transmitting 10, 50, or even 1000 watts of power on the same frequency or a very close frequency. It could also be some other shared rf device, such as wireless speakers in a neighbors house, etc. That's one of the problems with wireless (anything). Too much potential for interference.


from the FCCID (on mine), 433.92 MHz... That's shared with amateur radio. From the 70 Centimeters (420-450 MHz) "band plan":
433.00-435.00 Auxiliary/repeater links

If it's from an amatuer radio station, it's unlikely the interference would be 24/7...


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## BosFan (Sep 28, 2009)

jes said:


> I have an H23 using RF... worked fine yesterday... +1 for tech BS.


+2 for tech BS - H23 here on RF, all is good.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

jes said:


> I have an H23 using RF... worked fine yesterday... +1 for tech BS.
> 
> The fact that is stopped the day after Christmas might be a clue that a neighbor got something for Christmas with a sloppy transmitter... That said, the RF remotes should still work in close proximity to the H23 unless the RF interference is really high power, in which case the remotes not working are probably the least of your Uncle's concerns. :eek2:


The RF remote receiver's selectivity is notoriously poor. There is virtually no front end selectivity to reject even 440 MHz amateur transmissions. Many outdoor thermometer sensors suffer the same problem. Every time I key up even a 1.5 watt output transmitter on 436 MHz, the outdoor thermometer temp jumps to "----", until the next sync cycle.

It is unlikely that amateur transmissions are sloppy, as they are regulated for signal purity by the FCC (assuming they are not home-brewed, which very few are any longer), nor would they be continuous.

Intermittent operation of an RF remote could well be caused by the front end of the RF remote receiver caving in. Notice I didn't attribute the cause to the amateur transmitter.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

jes said:


> from the FCCID (on mine), 433.92 MHz... That's shared with amateur radio. From the 70 Centimeters (420-450 MHz) "band plan":
> 433.00-435.00 Auxiliary/repeater links
> 
> If it's from an amatuer radio station, it's unlikely the interference would be 24/7...


Agreed, however a repeater link or something could be fairly high usage. More likely is some other low power device using 433 on a secondary basis in a nearby neighbors house. But again, 100% duty cycle isn't going to happen.

Plus, it would need to be pretty close to frequency. I run 45 watt UHF (ham and commercial) from the same room two of my DIRECTV units are in, and rf remote works just fine.


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## SolutionGuy (Apr 4, 2014)

Place a 6 foot Ethernet cable in the socket on the back of the H23 receiver. Do not plug
the other end into anything. It acts like an external antenna.

Move it around if necessary to get the best result. Worked for me.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

SolutionGuy said:


> Place a 6 foot Ethernet cable in the socket on the back of the H23 receiver. Do not plug
> the other end into anything. It acts like an external antenna.
> 
> Move it around if necessary to get the best result. Worked for me.


makes about zero sense, for several reasons.
As this thread is over 2 years old, I'm closing it.


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