Sounds like an interesting project. Was there ever a solution for this? It would have other useful applications such as pointing a directional antenna toward a flying model with a low power TV transmitter. One possibility would be to use a tracker which transmits the location from a GPS receiver. ht...
It would probably be best to take your questions to the discussion group dedicated to this software. There you will find many people familiar with it and willing to help.
It shouldn't be necessary to take the radio apart in most cases. Just use the microphone / speaker connector on the side. Here is some open source software that can be used on the Raspberry Pi for Packet Radio / APRS. You will need to add a cheap USB Audio adapter to get audio in and out of the RPi....
You might want to consider using the APRS protocol for your tracking needs. APRS is commonly used for high altitude balloon tracking. It is generally used on the ham radio frequencies but could be used with other types of radios. It is implemented in numerous commercial products, kits, and open sour...