Cole, just to clear up the Hitec issue a bit, outside North America, all radios are compatible. Here, for whatever reason, JR and Airtronics use positive shift deviation for the signal encoding, whereas Futaba and Hitec use negative shift deviation. The Hitec Eclipse 7 and forthcoming Optic 6 have the capability to transmit either negative or positive shift by selecting from the model setup menu. This makes them compatible with all FM recievers. I believe the top-of-the-line Airtronics RD8000 does this, as does the Polk's Tracker II, both of which are also worthy of considering (sorry if I'm complicating your choices--but it bothers me to see all the Futaba and JR guys give you the Ford/Chevy argument, and so I'm here telling you to buy a Toyota![sm=bananahead.gif]). As for the buddy cable, I don't think they're generally compatible between different brands of transmitters, but I may be wrong. In the end, I'm sure you'll find the "best" radio for your purposes.

-Matt