Sage, USB-UIRT and problem with changing channels

[sunray]

My cable company has dropped most of the analog channels and it forcing people to move to digital cable. They provide the Pace DC50Xu Digital Tuning Adapter (DTA) for the transition. My HTPC has 5 analog tuners so I have 5 DTAs. I also bought 2 USB-UIRTs and 5 SmartHome IR emitters and 2 RadioShack Stereo to Mono adaptors so I Could use all 3 Zones on each adapter. But I'm having some problems.

I can get the DTAs to switch channels the 1st time I send them a command but after that the channel changing gets erratic. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The Pace DTAs come with external IR receivers which is what I use instead of the internal ones. I cover the internal IR receiver with black electrical tape. I've attached one of the external Pace IR receivera to the USB-UIRT in order to use the Zone 3 IR emitter on the USB-UIRT. I then wrapped it in electrical tape as well.

I've changed the "Delay Between Codes" and "Delay Between Channel Changes" values without it seeming to help. I also tried changing the "Digits per Channel" value from 3 to 2 and it didn't help either. I have noticed that Sage seems to send leading zeros which the Pace DTAs don't seem to need. They also don't seem to need a confirmation command like hitting the "Enter" key when changing channels.

When the channel change command is sent, I'll often see the 1st 2 digits appear quickly, with 1 or 2 leading zeroes depending on the channel being tuned, then the 3rd digit of the channel number appears later. The DTA will often retune to the original channel it was on by the time the 3rd digit appears. Could this be the source of my problem? If so how do I fix it?

My system is a 3.2 ghz P4 with 2 GB memory and HIS 2600 XT AGP video card. I have 3 Hauppauge HVR-1600 PCI tuners plus a Hauppauge PVR-USB2 external tuner and a ATI Combo 650 USB external tuner. Running WinXP SP3, USB-UIRT drivers v1.4 and Sage 6.62.

[graywolf]

I would recommend 2 options to try:

1. Change "Digits per Channel" to 4. Since it is sending a leading 0, this might help

2. Change "Digits per Channel" to 0. Have it learn the ENTER, then choose that as Confirm Code

timings I use is 80ms, 1000ms, repeat 4

that is for a Sony SAT-B55 though and I use option 2 for myself.

[jptheripper]

Can you post your .ir file for the DTAs? that way we can see the settings.

Also, although it wouldnt help for zone 3, there is a guy on ebay that sells a cable that goes directly from the usb-uirt output to the DTA input, whoever they are $17 bucks a pop.

[sunray]

Here are the .ir files I created via Sage for the Pace DC50Xu Digital Tuning Adapters. I tried adding Zone support in the 1st 3 files by prepending Z1,Z2,Z3 onto the front of the files but the Zone support doesn't seem to work either. I used the proper RadioShack Stereo to Mono adapter, # 274-375.