Nicolelawsc,

This is a pretty old post, but just in case your still want another crack at it....

I got these to work very well. If your transmitter is a TXC1 or similar, they should work fine with any old bit of wire for antenna (paper clip....) or no antenna at all if they are a couple of inches apart.

I found it very useful to use an oscilliscope (CRO) so you could see the data coming into the transmitter, and at the RX output pin. Without one of these your pretty much waisting your time.

Also, start with a slower Baud rate, say 600 or 1200 so you can see what is going on.
When you can send basic serial data ok... try using some different error correction techniques.... that's were the fun really starts.

Cheers
Squib