[chirp_devel] Adding Settings support to the VX8-R

[Keith Williamson]

Hi,

I think I figured out the "chirp" method for dealing with differing memory
layouts between radios withing the same driver.

I split the aprs struct into a shorter aprs struct, followed by a
aprs_msg_macro[%d] struct, and an aprs2 struct. I prepended both the
aprs_msg_macro[%d] struct and the aprs2 struct with "#seekto 0x%04X;" I
then computed the beginning address of the aprs_msg_macro[%d] struct and
added the starting address and number of message macros to the _mem_params
for both the VX8Radio and VX8DRadio classes. I also computed the beginning
address of the aprs2 struct and added those to the _mem_params for both
radio classes.

I've tested these changes with my VX-8R and the test image
Yaesu_VX-8_R.img. This leads to a quandry.

Reading back through the archived messages from around 2013, I see that
when the Settings support was added for the VX-8DR, the conclusion at the
time was that Settings would not be supported for the stock VX-8R due to
lack of a radio to test with. It was felt that most everyone would have
sent their VX-8R's in for the Yaesu upgrade that added the enhanced memory
and APRS support of the VX-8DR. Unfortunately, I was asleep at the switch
and was unaware of that opportunity until it was no longer offered. I would
have jumped on that given that APRS was one of my major drivers for buying
the VX-8R in the first place. Bummer..would have definitely liked to have
smart beaconing. Anyway, inspecting the Yaesu_VX-8_R.img memory, I see that
it is an AH029 that appears to have come from Dan who I remember from the
archives had gotten his upgraded through the Yaesu program. So, apparently,
the upgrade didn't result in a change to the _model for the radio.

Does anybody know of a way to disambiguate between a stock VX-8R and an
upgraded one? I need to be able to support upgraded VX-8R's as VX-8DR's.

Can anyone supply an image for a true VX-8DR so that I can test that my
code changes for the VX8DRadio class?

Thanks in advance!

73's,

Keith
KF7DRV




On Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 6:16 PM, Keith Williamson <hkwilliamson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to add support for Settings for the original VX-8R. I just
> recently have been switching over to chirp for all of my radios and was
> surprised to find that the Settings tab was empty after downloading from my
> VX-8R. After a few modifications to the vx8.py driver, I have settings
> coming up properly for my radio but have doubtless broken support for the
> VX-8DR.
>
> The VX8-DR has expanded APRS features such as SmartBeaconing, more Message
> Macros, more DigiPaths, etc. These affect the memory layout some. To fix it
> (temporarily), I corrected the memory layout to align with the VX-8R and
> commented out the calls that referenced the now missing memory elements.
>
> I'd like to contribute the changes back but I'm not sure how to handle
> support for both the VX-8R and VX-8DR (and VX-8GER). With differences in
> memory layout, should the VX-8R have a separate driver or can the memory
> layout differences be somehow accommodated within the same driver?
>
> 73's,
>
> Keith
> KF7DRV
>
>
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