i gave my raspberry pi another spin. this time the wifi worked out of the box. but i couldn't get bluetooth to work. which is odd because last time it was the bluetooth that worked and the wifi that didnt. i also managed to make the external usb hub on external power an internal hub drawing power from the same switch mode supply as the pi. it took some jumper wires soldered directly to the hub's pcb running to diy passthrough connector. so its powered and gives me a place to plug my radios and fits inside the lego case i made.
i still have a problem where i dont have any place to plug in a mouse (not that i have any non-ps2 wired mice). since bluetooth didnt work, i couldnt use my semi-functional bluetooth mice, and since my cheap chinese non bluetooth wireless mouse decided not to function. for some reason the gui didnt want to take any keyboard commands, so you couldn't do anything when the pi booted without a mouse. so it looks like i got to buy yet another thing either a wireless mouse with a mini-dongle that will fit inside the case, or a combo mouse/keyboard that draws less than 140ma. raspberry pi is still useless.