I know this sounds crazy (then again after reading a few posts, maybe not), but I have tested it again and again. Here is what is happening:
If AHP is running and the camera receiver is on and plugged into the VA11A, everything seems to works fine, except that I receive interference from my 802.11b/g/n wireless access point. However, the interference is tolerable.
The problem is that any X10 remotes cease to function, even when used 1 inch from the AHP antenna.
I did hours of testing and found out that the X10 remotes work perfectly if: a) turn of the 802.11 access point (also clears up interference), b) turn off the camera receiver (not the camera), or c) shutdown AHP software or disable the VA11A driver.
Since the X10 RF and the 2.4GHz shouldn't interfere at all with each other, and clearly they don't since the remotes work fine with both the camera and access point on, there is only one reasonable conclusion here. Somehow, the AHP and iWitness software stops processing RF commands because of the interference in the video. The only thing I can think of is that the interference is strong enough to make the video signal behave outside of the limits that the VA11A, driver, codec or Windows itself can handle, in turn causing AHP to simply disregard RF.
Again the points to stress:
1. Everything can be on with only the software off and RF works fine.
2. Add the software and RF stops, unless you clear up the interference.
People may suggest simply working on ways to clear up interference and that is what I am doing today. Antenna work, moving things around, yada, yada. This post is to address the software/hardware problem that is the ROOT CAUSE. Please don't post suggestions on clearing up the interference, I think that post has been beat to death.
Has anyone experienced this problem? Perhaps this red herring has caused people to work on other things they needn't fix? I know at first I thought the range or receiver on my AHP was broke but it works fine.
Basically this is making me crazy and my alternatives are, try to find the perfect reception scenario for the cameras or simply abandon iWitness and go with something else. I have to say if that happens I might ditch the whole X10 system and go with Insteon and Indigo software.