Hey, great post. Cool bug....giving me ideas. If I might chime in here, concur on the Baofengs. Also on the "learn how to manually program" your radios. I am one of those that refuses to "computer program" a radio. You can't take the laptop to the field.......however some can't live without it. Another radio I would recommend is the "Quansheng" Ive been running two TG-UV2's for the last 7 years and have had no issues. The benefits of the Baofeng UV-5s and the Quanshengs, is that you can transmit "outside" the Ham Bands. Giving you more frequency flexibility, they give you the ability to operate over the whole 2M (136-174) or 70cm (400-470) band. Your name brand radios are FCC compliant and only transmit on the Ham Bands....144-148 and 420-450.

I have "programmed" both of these brands of handhelds and found that it's not rocket science. They are user friendly. Now as for your "application" goes, I would be seriously interested as to how this turns out.

Just my roll-a-quarters.