Hi, many thanks for the feedback, glad alkaline batteries made a difference however; 90% still wouldn't be good enough for me.
Most people, myself included, will have batteries lying around in a drawer somewhere, if they work then great, if not then they need to be in a battery recyling box at the local shops and not put back in the drawer so as not to work next time. I'm assuming you did get brand new akaline batteries?
If so then there's either a local environment problem or a Humax remote/box problem.
Older and/or more expensive remotes can have multiple LED transmitters in them and sometimes it's possible to bounce the signal off the wall behind and it still works. Newer remotes and signal receivers in the boxes tend to have a reduced working angle meaning the remote has to be held pretty much direct in line with the box. If the box is too high or low or offset to your sofa then you will get problems. Imagine a torch with a V shape -< pattern of light being shone out, a sort of cone shape from the torch. The Humax box remote receiver is similar to that and the remote has to be within that cone shaped area and pointed directly back at the box for it to work properly, if that makes sense. As graham says, it should work as far away as you can get in a straight line, 6m in his case and if you've a room so big it doesn't work as far away as possible then you can afford a butler (only joking)
The unresponsive 6/7 seconds is worrying. Is the box doing anything at the time, i.e. recording or just finished recording and does it still happen when you're within the 1.5/2m distance as originally posted?
The 6/7 seconds could be sort of understandable if the box is busy, but I can't help thinking something else is going on within your local environment which could be location, lighting or anything electrical close to the box. Moving the box or sitting with the curtains closed, and testing with nothing else switched on, i.e. physically switched off not in standby, except for the TV and Humax and if there are still problems then I'd get in touch with Humax Customer Services.
Congratulations on getting rid of sky by the way, I know people who spend £60+ a month, £720+ a year for nothing really, the more money sky get the more they can bid on events against bbc/itv and create a monopoly of those events. Let us know how you get on.
