> The devices that will communicate, will nearly be in contact with each
> other, and there will be no external light interference at all

In that case you should be able to use an IR diode as the receiver
rather than the more expensive receiver+filter+amp type. You just
need to give the diode a little bias via a resistor to Vcc. If you have
any small transistors in a TO18 metal can you can cut the top off
and make your own opto-transistor with the IR shining straight on
to the base in the silicon. If the IR is strong enough you might not
need any signal amplification for the PIC to get the data cleanly

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