[Uniden] BC-3000 Battery question

[Techno]

OK, here's my 2 cents to activity...
All my three batteries for my BC-3000 have gone kaput.
My local battery renewer doesn't seem to have cells (1/2A? 2/3A) to renew
the pack.
There doesn't seem to be a local uniden importer and anyway, that damn
proprietry battery seems to be a serious limitation and expensive too!
What I'm looking for is solutions for battery renewal, preferably without
importing new units at uniden's outrageous prices ($50 each?). Here's a
summary of possible solutions:

1. Everyone's been complaining about why the BC-3000 doesn't use standard
AA cells like other popular scanners. Has anyone come out by now with a
replacement battery case with room for 5 AA's? Physically it can be done,
but the new case must extent a bit more at the bottom end of the scanner. I
thought about improvising this with an old battery case but the problem is
that the case is made of two pieces, and the slide-in tracks are on one
part and the latching tounge (which prevents the battery from falling off)
on the other...
I think I can still do it but of course would prefer to by a readymade
10-$20 plastic thingie...

2. I have found a cheap, quick and dirty solution by taking a readily
available plastic 6AA-cell battery housing (of the kind used to create a 9V
battery from 6 AA cells) and connecting it to the two spring tabs in the
battery compartment (even without soldering, just sticking the wires
beneath the tabs). The pack is then secured in the battery's space with a
few think run\beer bands...
Not very elegant solution (because the pack isn't as sleek as an original
battery as well as protrudes a bit from the back) but it's extremely easy
to implement as well as gives me more than 3 times the usage than a
standard 600mA pack (1800maH cells plus the fact that I'm using 6 cells
instead of 5 gives me additional time). The radio shouldn't mind using 6
cells because when charging it actually operates at close to 12V (see the
schematics)!
I can still put the radio on my hip, even with the pack protruding) and can
even quick charge as I have access to the battery terminals, as opposed to
the 14 hour standard pack charge time. Now if I only could get a AA cell
battery pack I'd be even more happy...

3. Anyone have an international shipping source for cheap high capacity
e.g. NiMh batteries (or at least battery pack internals replacements, I can
do the surgery myself)?

4. Any other good ideas?

Now that really pushed traffic on this list 100%...:-)

cheers!