It certainly wasn't intended as a useless post. If you do a search on e-bay for Motorola amplified external speaker, you can pick them up for $40 bucks or so:
motorola amplified external speaker | eBay
I've used a number of these in high noise environments, and they work really well. On the flip side, my dad has tried the low buck units from HRO and they have really awful sounding speakers and a design that is not anywhere near as nice.
I have a bunch of the non-amplified speakers sitting in a box in the shop, just can't bear to throw them out. If I had any of the amplified ones to spare, I'd be happy to give it to you for the price of shipping.