Hello Alpha,
Some issues with your code -
1) You appear to be polling the SCTE flag within SCS1 register, rather than the SCRF flag within the IRSCS1 register, since you are waiting for a received character into the IRSCI module.
2) Once the correct flag is polled, it is likely that COP timeout will occur since you do not reset the COP timer within your wait loop.
while ((IRSCS1 & 0x20) == 0) // Rx done ??
__RESET_WATCHDOG();
3) It may also pay to check the code generated by the compiler for the statement -
IRSCDR = IRSCDR;
to ensure that the compiler does not optimise this away.
The code to initialise the port pins is unnecessary since the IRSCI module will over-ride these pins when the module is enabled. There also seems to be little point in first zeroing the control registers before then writing the required values.
I have not checked your baud rate calculation. However, it is possible that the binary notation may not be acceptable to all compilers. Better to use hexadecimal.
Regards,
Mac