The remote

My friend Jayne’s dad gave her, unsolicited, a set of three remote-operated outlets when she was living in a studio apartment where it might have been possible to reach all of her light switches at once. Solid Dad move. She gave them to me to use in my chaotic art studio, which was very appreciated. However, out of the box the range was about 6 feet, which made these about as useful as a long broom handle. Less, if you consider that you can also use a broom handle for a broom. I fiddled with them and discovered that the housing was shielding the signal, and the antenna was really fragile. So I soldered some speaker wire in place of the old antennas and ran it outside the terminals. That worked, but the remote was pretty flimsy. So… obviously the solution was to make it out of bookboard and aluminum tape. It still works, but you really gotta mash on it. Martha says this remote is her ideal of all technology.