A response monitoring apparatus using a remote including an electrical circuit including a user activated input, a transmitter, and a receiver, where the electrical circuit is adapted to detect operation of the user activated input and temporarily activates the receiver. A validation and error checking system ensures valid transmissions occurring in both wireless and wired communications. The validation and error checking system retrieves data from the remote memory to create transmission data groups. The validation and error checking system calculates a checksum value for the transmission data groups and creates a checksum data group that includes the checksum. The validation and error checking system transmits the data and ensures that the data is properly sent. The tests to determine valid transmission include checking particular bits of the transmitted data, calculating a checksum and comparing it to the transmitted checksum, and transmitting two or more data packets and comparing the values of the packets.