Trying to solve Bell EVU remote control problem

[kanman]

Hi All,

I am grasping at straws right now for control of one of my Bell ExpressVU (DISH) receivers. I have 2 - 1 IR control - I am interested in purchasing the USB-UIRT for this one. The 2nd one is the one that I am having trouble with - it is controlled only by UHF (can go through walls). I have been looking throughout this forum and there are great ideas here, I know that this is geared at IR control but I was hoping that someone may have an idea on how I could control the UHF receiver via my PC.

Thanks for any help...

Kevin

[jrhees]

Kevin,

Is it an echostar receiver? The reason I ask is that many Echostar receivers (like my model) are RF controlled but *also* can be controlled by IR.

-Jon

[Guest]

Yes I believe that it is an Echostar (it has the DISH logo on it) but I have tried many universal remotes and I tried the IR remote that came with my new receiver and none of them worked. It is an old 4500C model that was one of the first receivers that Bell released for us in Canada about 6 years ago.

I have seen some sites that show how to mod the receiver to add IR support but that is a bit more that I wanted to do - not sure how stable this mod is - I am not great with soddering either....I wasn't sure if there was a way to do this a bit "cleaner" or not. On the back of the recevier there are 2 ports - 1 is a "highspeed data port" and the other is an accsesory port - neither are serial.

Thanks for the quick response.

Kevin

[clint]

Hellow dude.
I too have the same 4500c reciever and was wondering if you ever found a way to make it work?
Please and thanx.

[Guest]

Hey Clint,

I did finally get this working but it included some "modification" to my receiver. I found this site that explains http://www.carltonbale.com/dish/index.html how to add IR support to the 4500 series receiver. I ordered the needed supplies from Digikey (as they are in Canada) soldered in the new IR port, some needed resistors, and capacitors. About 15 minutes of work and now the receiver has IR, works great with a $10 remote from Wal-Mart (beats having to but the "Bell" replacement for about $80 CDN)...just waiting for my USB-UIRT, ordered it last week (hopefully shipping soon...). If you have any questions let me know.

Kevin

[jrhees]

...another brave graduate of the 'home-schooled' electronics course...

-Jon