Sorry to be that guy, but I feel like I'm so close to having it working!!
To try and get serial input to be posted straight out of the python sketch, it now looks like this:
#!/usr/bin/python
import socket
import serial
ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyATH0', 9600)
while ser.readline() != 'A':
# do nothing
pass
UDP_IP = "192.168.1.242" #Max IP address
UDP_PORT = 8888
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM) # UDP
data_raw = read(8) #read 8 bytes
sock.sendto(bytes(data_raw), (UDP_IP, UDP_PORT)) #sends the byte
#recvmsg=sock.recv(1024) #read response
#print recvmsg
sock.close()
Was getting an indent error (now fixed), but now it seems to run perfectly, but doesn't put anything out into udp...
Thanks again..