Well, surprise surprise! I peeled open the front of the U1 exposing the IR led and found it bent in such a way that it pointed to some plastic housing. After straightening it out and snapping the case back together, I now find that the U1 has much better IR power output.

I have been using remotes since they were ultrasonic. I have almost 50 remotes in my collection and all work fine where I sit. In fact some are so strong that they work bouncing off the back wall, ceiling o floor. I have to aim the U1perfectly to get it to work. And that is with new batteries. When the batteries are at 1/2 power, the U1 hardly works at all. So without any help from you, I will crack the case open and analyze the out going signal with my oscilloscope and do the appropriate fix, whether it's to lower the current limiting resistor to the IR or change the IR itself. If need be I will add an extra transistor to boost the power.

If you look at my original post, you can see the model number. Arris VIP5662W.