IRE TRANSACTIONS ON BROADCAST AND TELEVISION RECEIVERS

TELEVISION WIRELESS REMOTE CONTROL

by
Ricardo Muniz
The Magnavox Company, Inc.
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Basically, the wireless remote control device described is designed for

convenience. To truly serve this purpose and to give adequate control
of a television receiver from a remote point without wires, it is neces-
sary to provide control over the essential customer adjustments. There-
fore, the target or design objective was to provide the customer with
means for selecting previously-programmed channels, for turning the
set off or on, for having continuous control over picture brightness,
and for continuous control over audio volume. It is also desirable to
have the audio portion of the television receiver muted during the
channel selection interval because otherwise the customer would be
subjected to various disturbing sounds. With modern low-drift tuners
having individual channel adjustments, adjustment of fine tuning from
the remote point is probably unnecessary. Observation of television
receivers under home operating conditions led to the selection of bright-
ness control rather than contrast control, because it was found that with
the modern keyed a-g-c circuits employed in the receivers to which
this remote control would be applicable the need for customer adjust-
ment of contrast was considerably minimized but that adjustments to
compensate for room lighting conditions were brought about largely
through adjustment of the brightness control. Obviously, to be com-
mercially practical any system for providing this convenience has to be
both relatively inexpensive and almost perfectly reliable. To this end
an investigation of the various means for achieving the required end
result were explored more or less fully.

Various Remote Control Methods Explored the use of modulated radio frequency carriers. There
Among the various communication methods be- have been home television receivers marketed in
tween the remote point and the receiver under con- which the brightness of the television picture was
trol which were investigated were the use of light, automatically adjusted by a photoelectric cell which
both visible and infrared, the use of carrier current was sensitive to changing light conditions in the room,
through the line cords, the use of supersonics, and and these systems were considered in order to simplify

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 Television Wireless Remote Control
the communications requirements but were discarded similarity in the final equipment for supersonic con-
because of the limitations of control range and the trol versus modulated r-f carrier control. The oper-
added overall expense. Work along these lines also ating frequencies and operating power requirements
revealed that it would be difficult to use light as the are remarkably similar, and certainly the supersonic
means of communication between the remote point system would satisfactorily provide the convenience
and the receiver given the requirement of continuous and reliability which we were seeking. However,
control of two of the functions because of ambient further investigation showed that the present cost of
light which varies over a very wide range. The four the supersonic transducers for both the transmitter
systems of communication have, of course, all been and receiver resulted in greater overall cost of the
applied commercially by one or more manufacturers. system than the use of modulated r-f carrier; for
The use of photocells which are extremely sensitive this reason the choice of modulated r-f carrier con-
and modulated light at the control box would require trol was made.
accurate aiming of the light beam which was con-
sidered to be undesirable and reducing the conven- Limitations on the RF Carrier-Control System
ience which we were trying to achieve in the remote Having chosen to put forth our major design
control. Therefore, the approach was discarded. efforts on an r-f system we had to explore the availa-
The use of carrier current control was explored ble frequencies and the limitations imposed by the
next because of the obvious technical convenience of FCC. It was found that the FCC currently limits
applying the control communications through the operation of such remote control devices to the follow-
existing house wiring. Carrier current offers a relia- ing three bands: 19 to 490 kilocycles; 510 to 1600
ble method of control since it is a wired system, and kilocycles, which of course is the broadcast band;
it has the advantage of not requiring batteries at the and 26.97 to 27.27 megacycles, and we had to make
control point. It has the disadvantage or inconven- our choice between them. It was found that stability
ience, however, of having to plug-in the control box requirements at the 27-megacycle channel would
to an electrical outlet and thus reduce the mobility of dictate expensive crystal control at the transmitter and
the control point by tying it to a location having a further dictate the use of a superregenative type
convenient outlet. The carrier current system has ad- receiver to obtain economically the required gain.
ditional disadvantages, particularily in multiple dwel- The superregenative type receiver has several obvious
lings such as apartment houses, in that no positive disadvantages such as poor stability, spurious radia-
means is available for restricting the control's com- tions which may fall within the required television
munication information from reaching other receivers channels and a generally poor signal-to-noise ratio.
in the same apartment house, although this effect can
be minimized by filter condensors installed at ap- Also, there are increasing numbers of services utilizing
the 27-megacycle band which might generate serious
propriate points on the line. This disadvantage can, interference with any wireless remote control device
of course, to a degree be outweighed by controlling
the frequency of the carrier and providing an adjust- operating on this band. The obvious disadvantage of
ment. However, it was felt that the number of such utilizing the 510 to 1600 kilocycle radio broadcast
frequencies required to obtain positive differentiation band, particularly in large cities, are the number of
of the receiver which was in fact to be controlled broadcasting stations laying strong signals within the
made this difficult. The disadvantage of restricting range of the device. Not only local broadcasting
stations but, through skip-wave propagation phenom-
mobility, however, outweighed all the other dis- ena, distant broadcasting stations could create inter-
advantages and advantages of this system in our mind ference. Also, it was found that there was considerable
and for this reason the carrier current system was not
pursued. difficulty in obtaining a good ratio of control signal to
television horizontal sweep harmonics when the re-
Modulated RF Carrier-Control Method Chosen ceiving antenna for the remote control system was
mounted in the television set. Use of the broadcast
This left us really with a choice of two systems for band as the communications channel would also im-
providing communication between the remote point pose restrictions limiting the possible application of
and the receiver to be controlled-sound or modulated the remote control device later to remote tuning of
r-f. The use of sound as a control medium was con- an AM radio set if this should become desirable. For
sidered, particularly supersonics which would largely these reasons we felt that we must select a frequency
reduce the interference occasioned by normal room within the band of 10 to 490 kilocycles for the oper-
noises, traffic noise, etc. There is a remarkable ation of the communications channel of our remote

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 IRE TRANSACTIONS ON BROADCAST AND TELEVISION RECEIVERS

wireless device. It was obviously desirable to select as shown in Figure 1 and that the resonant reed
a frequency within this band which would fall be- multiplexing mechanism may be varied in its fre-
tween harmonics of the television receiver's horizontal quencies and that several radio-frequency channels
sweep circuit, either between first and second or can be provided for receivers in close proximity to
second and third and fourth, etc., thus making it pos- each other requiring perhaps one kilocycle of r-f car-
sible to utilize a sharply tuned high-gain r-f amplifier rier separation for adequate discrimination enables
with a minimum of interference from the spurious multiple system operation. Having decided now on
radiations for horizontal sweep circuit. Therefore, the means for carrying information from the remote
the possible choices of frequency are: 1. around 20 point to the controlled receiver and the frequency
kilocycles; 2. around 40 kilocycles; 3. between the of operation, let us now look at the system itself and
third and fourth harmonic, 54 kilocycles, etc. The how it performs the control functions that contribute
lower frequencies, of course, require relatively large to customer convenience as outlined at the beginning
components in the r-f amplifier circuit. The higher of this paper. A block diagram of the system appears
frequencies have the disadvantage that the relative in Figure 2.
achievable selectivity bandwidth becomes proportion-
ately less when compared to the separation between
harmonics of the horizontal oscillator. An additional
consideration in the selection of the nominal frequency
was, of course, the desirability of providing a multiple
choice of carrier frequencies which would permit the
remote control of a number of receivers in a restricted
location such as a dealers' showroom, or a multiple
dwelling. As a result of experiments it was decided
to place the nominal frequency of operation between
the second and third harmonics of the horizontal
scanning frequency, and it was found that the system
gave reliable performance when adjusted to fre-
quencies between 37.3 kilocycles and 41.3 kilocycles.
A combination of circumstances, among them the fact
that at this low frequency we are well within the
cube law induction field attenuation characteristic,
that is, field strength falls very rapidly with distance,
Fig. 2. Wireless Remote Block Diagrom

Description of the System

The system comprises a transistorized battery-
operated, tone-modulated r-f transmitter contained in
a a small plastic case. Five stable tones are provided.
The six-tube receiver uses a ferrite rod antenna in a
Faraday shield and consists of two r-f amplifier stages,
0
.
aSI
i: a demodulator, a limiter-amplifier and a power ampli-
i
w
F w fier, the output of which is fed to a mechanical chan-
2 nel-separating device dependant upon reed resonance
*
I.-
£i
0
to separate the information contained on the five tones
a and feeding this information directly to the controlled
circuits. Two of the tones are utilized in controlling
volume up or down; two of them in controlling bright-
ness up or down, and the fifth tone operates the chan-
I0 nel-selection on-and-off mechanism. The volume and
brightness up or down pulses from the reed selector
are applied to memory circuits which in turn deter-
Fig. 1. Transmitter Field Strength mine the output level of the brightness and volume

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 Television Wireless Remote Control

applied to the cathode of the triode, the negative

peak of the wave causing V-2 to draw grid current
changing the charge on the capacitor C-3 in the
negative direction. Thus we have established a
method for increasing or decreasing the charge on
C-3 and maintaining high leakage paths. Differenti-
ating the pulses makes response speed independent
of reed dwell time. The triode is operated with low
plate and filament voltages to perform as an "elec-
trometer" circuit resulting in a very low grid cuArrent
over a range of grid bias. Capacitor C-3 is connected
from plate to grid and functions as a "Miller inte-
grator" circuit resulting in an increase of approxi-
mately ten times, in this case, of effective capacity
at the grid. Increasing the effective capacity in this
Fig. 3. "Memory" Circuit manner results in a longer available time constant or
storage time for a given size capacitor C-3. The
achieved RC time constants run in the order of
output control tubes. Figure 3 shows the circuit several hundred hours, the result is a d-c control
diagram of an electronic memory system. Its func- voltage at the plate pick-off point which remains con-
tion is to store variable voltage level for a period of stant over a long period of time and may be used to
time. The device consists of a neon bulb to provide remember a volume or brightness level. The audio
both coupling and isolation to a tube grid resistance- control circuit is shown as Figure 4. A variable bias
capacitance time-constant network. The tube plate is applied to this triode; thus the tube acts as a
voltage is used as an information pick-off point. Leak- variable resistor of a value approximating 1/. due
age paths must be kept to a minimum in order that to the feedback from plate to grid through the
long time constants can be achieved with practical capacitor C-1. It has been found possible to achieve
and inexpensive components. The input coupling 35 db of volume control range in this manner with
must, therefore, be essentially an open circuit and low distortion.
there must be a minimum of connections with leakage Figure 5, shows the brightness-control tube circuit.
potentialities. The circuit provides a very high re- The d-c control potential from the brightness memory
sistance coupling method when the neon bulb V-1 circuit controls a triode operating as a degenerated
is not conducting. Positive voltage pulses may fire d-c amplifier providing continuously variable bias to
V-1 and be passed on to the grid of the triode. the cathode of the picture tube.
The cathode circuitry and that preceding the neon
bulb is utilized to change the charge on C-3. The
output wave shape at point A of the increase reed -IAUDIO AUI DiO
is shown. The reed is normally open and when the IO OUTPUT INI PUT

reed makes contact a net positive pulse appears at -_ <

point A which is differentiated by the time constant it1
circuit consisting capacitor C-1 and resistor R-2 ap- >~~~~~ I
AUDIO
OUTPUT
plying to neon tube V-1 a differentiated wave shape m
gm
I

as indicated on the diagram. The positive spike fires TUBE < R2

the neon bulb resulting in a change of charge of
capacitor C-3 in the positive direction at point C,
thus changing the grid bias on the triode V-2. The
decrease reed is also normally open and when it makes
8+
contact it generates a square wave in a negative di- (A) (8 a)
rection. (Note that the pulse direction at point D
on the diagram is incorrect.) This is again dif-
ferentiated by capacitor C-2 and resistor R-5 and Fig. 4. Audio Control Circuit

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 IRE TRANSACTIONS ON BROADCAST AND TELEVISION RECEIVERS
RAY
Presumably, this type of wireless remote control
could be applied to other power-tuned mechanisms.
It might not be remiss to spend a few moments on
the reed mechanism itself. As mentioned before, the
output of the power amplifier of the remote-control
receiver is fed directly to the reed system. The energy
flowing through the coil provides a tone-modulated
magnetic field which sets into motion the reed which
is resonant to that tone and has very little effect on
the other four reeds. The reed freequencies are con-
tained within one octave to avoid harmonic problems.
The frequencies chosen are 53, 67, 76, 85 and 95
Fig. 5. Brightness Control Circuit cycles. Note avoidance at 60 volts. These reed fre-
quencies have the advantage over higher octaves in
The operation of the channel-select function is that it is possible to reproduce several harmonics of
suggested in Figure 6. The reed is normally in the the reed frequency through the tuned circuits with
open position and when it is operating has a dwell relatively narrow sharp band pass. Limiting in the
time of 5% to 10% of its cycle. A combination of the receiver is important because constant reed amplitude
over a wide range of i-f signal inputs should be
relay resistance and C produces a d-c voltage across maintained so as to avoid overdriving that results in
the relay sufficient to cause it to become operative,
thus closing the contact to the power tune mechanism overlapping of reed response. This limiting action is
which is programmed by means of a programming found to be easier to achieve at the lower octave
wheel to automatically go to the next previously- selected because a reasonable square wave is main-
tained through the tuned circuits and the duty cycle is
programmed live channel, and in one of its positions preserved. The size and physical contribution of
to turn off the television receiver. The operation of the mechanism was designed to make it rugged, and
the power tuning device is not covered in this paper. in its current embodiment it retains its adjustment
through any normal usage or factory handling. The
reeds themselves are made of a stabilized alloy ma-
terial with low temperature coefficient and predictable
W- . 1NO~^ALY OPEN TO CHANNEL
characteristics. Vibration of the reed closes its con-
lI ~ SW
-;j|| t
STCHING
~~MOTOR tact and provides control of the circuit to which it is
connected. The contacts were designed for maximum
RELAY
dwell time and the minimum leading edge chatter.
A contact on the end of a reed such as this must be
especially designed to minimize chatter. Adjusting
CHANNEL
SELECT the contact location with respect to the reed influences
REED
the system's bandwidth and by proper adjustment the
bandwidth is two or three cycles; since this is ap-
proximately the entire system bandwidth, excellent
Fig. 6. Channel Select Circuit signal-to-noise figures can be maintained.

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