Being that you do not mind a learning curve and not all that familiar with VB, you could start learning.......
I was just thinking the same thing over tea. It would be really neat to have a complete project that gathers the data, rfpic's it over then stores it in an application / program.

So PYTHON v's VB how similar or which is best / more suited?


Is this the sort of thing, serial to USB?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-RS232-Co.../dp/B00077DJIQ