Description Many households are still graced by tube-type television sets. If you want to connect one of these large tellies to your stereo system to improve the sound quality, this is usually not a problem because there are plenty of SCART to Cinch adapters available in accessory shops. However, with some sets your pleasure is spoiled by the fact that the audio outputs of the SCART connector are not muted during channel switching. This can sometimes lead to nasty signal spikes, which can cause the loudspeakers of your stereo system to emit irritating popping and cracking noises. In such cases it is a good idea to fit your system with a mute circuit. Fortunately, the right time to activate the mute circuit is defined by the fact that the happy zapper presses buttons on the remote control to switch channels, and the remote control emits IR signals. There are even inexpensive ready-made IR receiver modules available, such as the TSOP1136 used here, which produce trains of active-low...