That looks like a transister. If it was RF then you would need an antenna, like a wire. if its IR then you would see something that looks like a LED.
Ok, looking into it more. Looking at some of the long-distance choices at the bottom of the page here: http://www.rentron.com/remote_control/IRLED.htm Would replacing the LED with something with higher power output work? Datasheet says it's standardized which makes me think you could swap them.
I'd think so. Not sure what's in your remote, but it seems that most of the ones there list 100ma (Whether most IRs take around that, I don't know). The high output listed from what I see, don't use anymore power, just focus the same amount of light in a smaller view angle.
if you threw in a transistor too you could buffer the output to the LED and throw the biggesed you can find in there!
