My Panasonic TV turns on and off by itself?

Question

And yet i can't get a remote control to work on it at all. What is going on?

This has only been happening in the last week.

It turned off once during a show.

It turned itself on and then off in the middle of the night last night and now again this morning.

Should I be prepared for an explosion?

Answer 1

It sounds like you are getting interference.

First off, there are 2 kinds of remote: RF and IR.  RF (less common) will work through walls; IR requires line-of-sight access of the remote to the TV.

Sources for RF interference are cordless phones, radio transmitters, "noisy" motors, and so on.

Sources of IR interference are less common, but include "remote control extenders", computers and PDAs with IR ports, and various "cordless" things like cordless headphones.

So first you need to check your manual and find out whether your remote uses RF (Radio frequencies) or IR (InfraRed) communication to control the TV.

If it's IR (and most are), then try to locate the "window" on the TV set where it receives the signal from the remote.  This may be shown in the owner's manual.  Cover the "window" with opaque tape, like vinyl electrical tape.  Your remote won't work for sure, but if the problem stops, then you know the TV is getting IR interference from somewhere... and all you need to do then is find the source.