Well after another day of playing around I am no closer to a solution.
The last thing I can think of is using a PNP based switch with the resistor such that once the program starts running I set a pin high which is connected to the base of the transistor effectively taking the resistor out of the circuit.
Only other weird thing is that when I do get it working in the strange way of removing the resistor it only works if I have a piezo buzzer connected between the rx and gnd...weird!!
