Increasing Range of Hauppauge Blaster?

[pastro]

The end result is that we took an IR LED from another system and spliced it into the cable and it works much better. He gets four feet reliably now. He didn't use a series resistor.

[Braklet]

The end result is that we took an IR LED from another system and spliced it into the cable and it works much better. He gets four feet reliably now. He didn't use a series resistor.

I don't have the PVR-150 blaster, but I just bought the Hauppauge MCE Remote kit which includes the tiny little transmit pod.

I've read that this thing is extremely touchy about placement which leads me to believe it is a lame LED with little brightness.

I might try kludging up a visible LED & resistor to a 1/8" jack just to see how well it lights. Then I can buy some infrared LEDs and experiment.

Has anybody found a retail source for additional blaster pods for this kit? They're apparently manufactured by SMK, but mine only came with one. I could really use a couple for experimentation as well as control.