Will,
Great work you hav going on this project. I was AC on a feature here in CO in March where the DP was experimenting with both the Brite View and the Asus transmitters (shot on two RED MX's). We didn't have steadicam but the studio we were in was built for two big warehouses (crates to the ceiling, scaffolding, barrels etc - very crowded and they performed pretty decent. Your idea with the antennaes is great and would yield even better results.
We tested the transmission on several occasions walking throughout studio and from studio to outside and we would get roughly 120-130 ft before we'd lose signal. Not too bad for a $200 unit. We did run into issues when we ran two Asus units one on both A and B cams simultaneously where it occasionally drop signal for 5-10 seconds sometimes in middle of takes. When we would use one Brite view and one Asus combinations we saw less incidents with signal drops, they were still there but not nearly as frequent. A side note we would see big signal issues with our B camera when the AC ran signal from camera to his small hd dp6 monitor then through to the transmitter, it drop signal like crazy. Once he switched it for signal to run from camera to transmitter then to his monitor like I had on A cam it was less frequent.
We powered our transmitters with Tekkeon battery packs which would last about 4-5 hours each battery. And I really liked the Asus over the Brite view especially considering both transmitter and receiver were less than half the size of the Brite view and sat nicely on top RED cam with Velcro between battery/harddrive cradle and back of top handle compared to the Brite view which we had to Velcro to side of cradle body and was more cumbersome.
Looking forward to seeing more of what you come up with on this.