yes in fact I tried both and it do not work.
I think my problem might be in the receiving end. when I do an lcd out without the serin command, the LCDout works, as soon I add the serin command, I only see black squares on the LCDout. So I think the serin command is not good.
BUT if I just put

serin portB.3, n2400,[ encoded22.HighBYTE, encoded22.LowBYTE, encoded11.HighBYTE, encoded11.LowBYTE]

lcdout $FE,1
LCDOUT "datain: ", BIN 5
lcdout $FE,$C0, "datain2: ", bin encoded22.HighBYTE
Pause 500

is there something else I should be putting in for serin ?

k