What I've learned this month on the forum.....

[skimask]

In the cold light of day I might just "play" with the baud rates and see if increased speed = increased distance.
What modules are you using Ski??

For one, the TWS/RWS-434 modules from www.Rentron.com
Others, I've gotten from www.sparkfun.com, the 434 TX/RX pair (don't remember the model # of the top of my head)
They're practically identical. I usually add them into an order as an after thought to keep a couple extras on hand.

[dhouston]

The one's from Spark Fun do not have an analog (i.e. linear) output. That's not much of an issue unless you want to measure the received signal strength.

The TWS/RWS (Wen Shing) are available from many dealers worldwide and have been cloned by several manufacturers.

Here's another, dirt cheap, source. [url}http://www.e-madeinchn.com/Product.htm[/url]

ASK (Amplitude Shift Keying or On Off Keying) is AM and FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) is FM. Most FSK modules cost more but you can use their Carrier Detect pin to tell when a signal is present, doing away with any need for sync bytes or start-of-frame pulses.

Range (i.e. distance) is independent of baud rate and is almost 100% a function of transmit power (severely limited by the FCC) and environment. It is, however, easy to increase range by improving the receiving antenna, adding preamplification, etc. Some receivers (e.g. the dirt cheap ones above) cannot handle a preamp, others (e.g. Wen Shing) can handle 2-3 cascaded.