Last week a few of you helped me wire in the vcr so I could record Survivor while I work. It's hooked up / ready to go. Now, I have another problem.....

The vcr was being used by my brother every now and then for the past 4 months. The remote has been sitting with my other remotes for the past year to year and a half. When I used the vcr a couple years back, I did use the remote. BUT, now it does not want to work. It's like new and I put in new batteries. If I remember correctly, there was a small oval sensor that came with the vcr. This does not have to be used though, right? My vcr is in the open and no matter what angle or distance I go, the remote (ALL buttons) does nothing. I was using a universal remote at one time for the tv / vcr. This still shouldn't effect the manufacture's remote??

Thanks for any help!!

The little electric eye, as I recall, is for connecting the VCR to a 3rd party cable remote box, so no, it's not needed unless you have a cable box and need it to tune into a cable channel to record while you're away.

Most likely, assuming the remote is working and the batteries are good, is there might be a "switch" (not a button) that changes control from cable to vcr. if that got switched to cable, the remote wont work for the the vcr.

If you have any other JVC equiptment, most of their remotes will work with other JVC components, so you try that also.

My Toshiba VCR remote acts as a universal remote for both the Toshiba VCR and the Sony TV. There is a VCR/TV switch on the remote to let me choose which equipment I want to use the remote for. Maybe this is the case with your remote.