I've spent the last day hunting around the web trying to find how to get my remote to interface the way I want it to, but have not been sucessful. I have an Outlaw 990, a Harmony 1000 universal remote. I also have a Motorola DVR/Cablebox, a Sony DVD, a Sony 400 Disc Cd Jukebox, and a Sony HD TV, a Rotel RB-1050 driving the fronts, and a Rotel RMB-1066 driving the remaining channels, a Sony tape deck and a Sirius receiver.

The Harmony remote works just fine, it controls everything quite well. What I want to do however is take advantage of its RF capabilities to be able to control everything without worring about line of sight, or distance. That is actually easily remedied with the Logitech RF extender. The RF extender will receive the RF signals, transalate them into IR and pass the signal onto IR flashers to stick onto the face of the components. That solution is fine for the Tape Deck and the Sirius receiver as they do not have rear IR input jacks, and they are actually behind a door so they will not be seen. I do not like the asthetics of pasting the IR flashers to the front of the various units. Espcially the T.V. as the wiring for the flasher will be very visable, due to the location of the IR reciver on the front. So what I want to do is use the rear IR inputs on the 990, the CD player, the T.V., the Motorola DVR/cable box, and the DVD player. I understand from browsing older topics on this forum that the 990 needs an interface module, a Xantech 794-10 to be able to receive input to the IR jack. I'm sure I can find one online. But that is only half of the problem. From the best I can tell the Logitech/Harmony RF extender only outputs a IR signal to a flasher, there does not appear to be an option to use a mono plug for direct IR input. So question #1, does anybody know if the RF Extender supports that option, I've looked extensivley at the logitech web site and reviews of the Extender and this option isn't mentioned anywhere. Question #2, regardless of the RF extender's output what kind of input does the Xantech 794-10 need. Can I connect a flasher to it from the I.R. extender or do I need to route it through another "module" to get the signal to the 794-10? Question #3, to connect to the other components, again assuming the RF Extender does not have a mono jack output option, what do I need to have to connect to the IR jack inputs? I'm assuming Xantech or another company has a device of some sort that will let me translate those IR signals to a hard wired IR jack. If so what is it? I suppose another option is to use the blaster capability of the Rf extender. I could hide it behind the system (there is plenty of room out of sight) and let it brodcast to a Xantech or other IR receiver that would then connect to the 794-10 to connect to the 990, and otherwise have at least 4 other hard wired mono jacks for rear IR input.

I am aware that this is all a bit complicated, but I do not want to run any flashers to the front of the system. It took me a lot of time and effort to get it set up the way it is, and I like the way it looks and so does my wife. So out of sight, and out of mind needs to be accomplished. I also am aware with the Rf extenders blaster function that I can place in front of the system and it will do the job. Again it's an asthetics issue. I have no place to place it in front that is unobtrusive. If the other solutions here are simply too complicated or too expensive, I suppose I could mount the blaster (assuming it's mountable) to a corner in the room with decent line of sight to the equipment, but that's a last resort. I'm not sure how happy she would be with that option. Sorry for the length of the post, but I didn't know how else to expalin it all. Thanks for the help.

Ok, I've answered at least part of my own questions. I got a hold of Harmony support (only because I purchased a Harmony product in the last 60 days). They confirmed that the RF Wireless Extender does not have a mode that will output to an 3.5 mono IR jack. So as expected that is not an option. I have a call into a Xantech distributor. I explained my situation and he promised to do some research and call me back. I'll let you know what I find out.

I've obtained more of my own answer. The Xantech distributor called me back in about an hour yesterday. Very nice guy, very helpful. he called Xantech and they told him the Harmony RF Extender itself can be connected to a rear IR port with a proper 3.5 mm mono patch cord. Interesting that Xantech would say that and Harmony wouldn't. So I purchased the RF extender last night. It's a fairly small product, a compact ac to dc converter for the plug, a small lightweight, IR blaster that has a spot for 4 3.5 mm plugs labeled A-D and 4 x 2 mini IR flashers. The store I purchased the RF extender from did not have any 3.5 mono patch cords, and Radio Shack was closed by the time I got there yesterday. I haven't had time to see if the patch cords do indeed work but I don't see why not. According to Logitech you can set up the Extender in either a "blaster" mode and place it where it can see all the IR receivers on the from of your equipment. Or you can set up the flashers and place them over the IR receivers. I didn't have time to try either last night. I'll try it with the patch cords tonight if I have time (but got to see that new Lost episode). I'm sure I'll still need a Xantech 794-10 to make it talk to the 990 but first things first.

Curious to see how you made out. Did it work?

Well, for the most part it did. You can indeed plug a mono 3.5 mm patch court into the Harmony RF Extender, and run it to the properly equiped component. Unfortunatley, what I found out last night was the only properly equiped component I have was the TV.

First thing you have to do is go on line to your Harmony account tell it you have the extender and follow their set up routine. Not hard, a bit time consuming. You can select each component to be ran from either your Remote or from the Extender but not both. I had read some earlier reviews that said you had to select the jack that each particular componenet was attached to but it didn't work that way for me. Perhaps new soft or firmware? So the Harmony site has to download to both the extender then the remote. Then after that all the usual moving the stuff around to get behind the equipment.

But, yes I ran a 3.5 mm jack directly to the S-Control input on the T.V. and it worked beatifully. No problems whatsoever. So strangely enough Harmony was wrong about what it's product would do, and Xantech was correct. I don't have the Xantech 794-10 module yet so I haven't gotten it to talk to the 990 yet. I tried it for the heck of it without the Xantech module and it didn't work.

Unfortunatley for me, while my cable box/DVR has an IR port according to the manual that's an IR output to control some VCRs. Weird, but I plugged it in anyway to give it a try no go. Finally, my CD Jukebox which has the A1 II control on the back didnt' work with the 3.5 mm either. That one I'm going to have to explore a bit, perhaps the protocal is to different from the S-Control. Perhaps another Xantech module is needed.

I then went ahead and used the mini-flashers, they work really well and in most cases do not have to be right on top of the actual IR receiver on the front of your components. So for the most part I palced them in positions where they don't stand out. I'm still tweaking I'll report on how it goes.

Well in case anyone is intersted, I was able to connect the harmony RF Extender to the rear IR input on the 990. You do need the Xantech 794-10, along with the proper power supply to do so. It works perfectly, no IR flasher stuck on the front and a direct connection. Scott from Outlaw has the Dip Switch settings for the 794-10. Or ask me, I've got them also. the only difficulty was trimming down a 3.5 mono to bare wire on one end. It went from the RF extender output, to a 3.5 mm mono plug, that I pared down to bare wires on one end, connected to the terminals on the Xantech 794-10, connected the power supply then ran a 3.5 mm mono to the rear IR input on the 990. Like I said works perfectly well. My system is slowly getting to where I want it