I'm not clear on the benefits of Squirrell's proposal ... while I do agree with most of the comments that this is not a legal operation.
What exactly do you gain by sending 123 or 456 or 789 versus a simple 1 or 2 or 3? What are the benefits of sending an (imo illegal) multi-button command?
If alliance and/or opponent interference is the problem that you're trying to avoid then perhaps we should get some time prior to match start to verify that our remote commands do not overlap. It'd be a darned shame if in the middle of my Auto-HURDLE, my alliance partner inadvertantly makes me TURN LEFT!
This concern will end up influencing my team's placement of the IR sensor, to make sure that we have access to the PROGRAMMING button ... we can re-load the 1/2/3/4 buttons from our (very typical) Sony remote control into something like CH UP / CH DN / MUTE / MENU ... or some other keys.