If this is a hobby or small-run project, you might want to consider that
several of the "surplus" electronics dealers have "IRDA Modules" consisting
of the some IRDA transceiver and a couple of passive parts mounted on a
small PCB with flex cable or wires coming off, such as:

http://sales.goldmine-elec.com/prodinfo.asp?prodid=2622

BillW

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