TiVo Community Forums Archives - Dual Blasters good?

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Dual Blasters good?
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Posted by: Cabrill

When I first got my Tivo I set it up using both IR Blasters. One above the Satellite Box, one below. But then I started having some channel misfires. I thought maybe two signals was confusing it, so I moved one of the two away. You know, like if it's trying to change to channel 204, but it's a fraction of a second off so it see's the numbers of each blaster as something different so it ends up with 220044, and you get channel 220. So I moved one away, changed the speed of the channel changing settings in Tivo and the problem has all but vanished. But just recently I saw a picture of an IR tent and in the tent they were using both. I'm just wondering if using both makes the connection more reliable or if I'm better off only using one, and if it is better off using both what prevents the Tivo from getting confused about double digits?

Posted by: JPriller

I've read here that one end works more reliably than two. When I set up DirecTV receivers for my stand-alone TiVos I only used one end each (with IR forts) and it's worked flawlessly.

Posted by: ccwf

TiVo's recommendation in the manual is to use both. But some people do indeed have better success with only one.

Posted by: phone1

I noticed also that the manual shows both blasters attached to a cable box, which really makes no sense. In reality I think TiVo ships dual blasters for those who may be using both satellite receiver and cable box, or in the case of a Sony, want to control an STB and a Sony VCR.

Posted by: ellinj

I had very good luck using the single blaster, never really even considered using the second. The bigger issue that I have is with the cable box powering off during an upgrade or power failure and not coming back on. This is the main reason that I stopped using the cable box for my Tivo.

Posted by: ccwf

For power failures, you can get a UPS, which you should do anyways to protect your TiVo. For cable box firmware upgrades, there is indeed little that can be done beyond the once-a-day wake-up feature some boxes have.

Posted by: WesE

I started out using two, and had an occasional channel misfire which was no big deal as there was always something else to watch. About a week ago I switched to 1 IR and also made a small 3"x3" box (IR tent). Since then I haven't had a single channel misfire yet. One seems to work better for me.

Wes
http://www.intruder1500.com/spammed/