Reading the intensity of an IR Led using a PNA4601M IR Receiver

Hello,
I'm trying to detect if an IR Led is on and if it is how intense is the light.
For this purpose I tried to use a PNA4601M IR Receiver (Parallax Inc | Equip Your Genius®) that I bought from Parallax a while ago.
I thought the I could simply connect the Vcc of the IR Receiver to 5v, the GND and read the voltage out through the Vout. The higher the voltage, the stronger the IR Light shinning on the IR Receiver. But that is not what happened.
After applying 5V to the Vcc, connecting the GND and reading the output (Vout), I get 5V (a bit lower than the input), even with the IR Led turned off.
What am I missing here? Any clues?
Thanks a lot,
BurningFuses

What am I missing here?

You're missing the fact that it is not a simple photo diode, but a device designed to receive and demodulate IR remote signals with a carrier frequency of 38kHz.
It only "sees" light sources blinking at, or near, that rate and is blind to DC light levels.

Alright! Thanks a lot AWOL. I was complicating something that should be simpler. I plain photo diode did the trick.
Best,
BurningFuses

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I'm looking to measure IR intensity as well. Could you share your schematic that you eventually decided on @Burningfuses?