ah well:) just so happens that I did something similar using 433Mhz band which is licence free under european regulations as long as the ERP is less than 10 mW.You can also use the 2.3 Ghz band again ERP less than 10mW,there are commercial units which use these bands but the data rate is usually 64Kbits/s,nothing stopping you using higher data rates at low ranges though.
As for triple DES Grrr! but I do just happen have a very nice pipelined DES fpga design,works in outer-cbc or ebl modes :)