IR controllers

Our team has a standard, unmodified unversal TV remote that we are using for the hybrid period, it works good, but can’t send a signal 50 feet. What are some other teams doing to improve theirs?

We replaced the infrared LED in our remote control with the LED found at the bottom of this web page: http://www.rentron.com/remote_control/IRLED.htm

Now our remote is reliable up to about 100ft away (it can go even farther), as long as you can aim with some degree of accuracy since the beam is only (plus or minus) 10 degrees wide. But at least it is easy to aim this beam and it helps minimize accidental blasting of somebody else’s IR sensor.