RW2 Internals.

ArcCoyote

ArcCoyote

New member
Ok, so I found a little Torx bit and took a look inside my RW2 remote and receiver. Also did a little snooping in the drivers.

Interesting... In both the remote and the receiver, the radio modules are little daughterboards that have been soldered into place, clearly an "option" vs. the standard design.

The remote is nothing special, aside from discovering the "antenna" is just a spring hot-glued in place. No wonder the range isn't as good as the RW1. Ditto for the receiver, there's just a little spring under that plastic peak.

What really got me is that the receiver is a full IR device as well! In addition to the already discussed IR-blaster ports, there's an IR sensor at the front right next to the red LED.

This is definately an MCE device customized by ATI. It honestly looks like it started life as an IR remote/blaster based unit and had the RF capability added.

I dunno who OEMs the remote but the drivers are written using Jungo's WinDriver package...

:hmm:

I played with WinDriver when I was trying to get an old Toshiba Infinia LCD display and remote to work under 2k/XP. It's a godawful way to prototype drivers, let alone release them. Let's hope ATI writes something more native in the future.
 
A spring coil is what's used in the majority of professional antennae at these low frequency ranges, mainly to save space (ie: the AM radio stations you listen to have an effective radiating antenna of 160 Meters, it takes a lot less space if you can coil the antenna.) In this case it's more than likely a simple (Although very small) division of a half wave antenna.
For example:

The RW1 and 2 probably operate at 49MHz which needs an efficient antenna length of around 4 feet 10 inches.

If you desoldered the spring and attatched a wire of that length to the solder pad you'll most likely find your range increasing.
If you did the same inside the actual remote using shielded wire, wrapping it inside the handheld you'd get even more range.

All this is based on the RW1/2 operating at 49MHz (Which it probably is)

Bear in mind that this is all theoretic and by doing this simple mod you'll invalidate your warranty, probably violate some FCC rule on power transmission or even kill yourself.
So don't do it.
 
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I'm not sure, I just got mine RW1 a couple of days ago, but I think I've read it operates on 433Mhz... P.S. Just one thing how much testing did ATI do for their RW1/2 products? Do they have SAR values, like for mobile phones whcih are also (in esence) just RF transcievers...
 
RW1 and RW2 are using 433 mhz frequency.
It seems that Philips is the manufacturer of RW2 (at least that what is written on my invoice that came with the product). X10 was the manufacturer of RW1.
 
Two things bother me still...
How much radiation do I get exposed to using it hour a day (roughly)? Does it send any RF signals when it's idle...?
 
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