[chirp_users] programming Kenwood TH-F6A

[rolan.clark at comcast.net]

Dear all,


                                    OBSERVATIONS

If the TH–F6A ( and probably others) CHIRP program is working properly, when you  click on    >Radio>Download from Radio and then OK , I  think, you should see a status bar at the bottom of the data screen, right half, with the memories  being loaded scrolling by and it will take about 30 seconds to do the 400  memory locations (0 –399) on the TH-F6A.

First of all, when the CHIRP download radio data screen comes up be sure  there is at least one line of memory displayed by going to row numbers located at the top of  what would be memory data, the memory range inputs,  and be sure that at least one memory line is there by, say start at 0 and end at 1 then click GO , that should give  one line of  data with zeros if the radio has no memories stored. At least I think that is what was the case with the TH-F6A I was playing with.

I hope the below info on what I have learned by helping a friend  to get his  Kenwood TH-F6A programming to work will benefit someone in some way.

My friend has XP on his computer and thanks to KC9HI , Jim Unroe, and his patience  we got it going by loading the driver from the URL.

http://www.miklor.com/uv5r/UV5R-Drivers.html

Without this driver when running CHIRP and doing the download process the CHIRP data screen would come up but no memories were shown scrolling on the status bar at the bottom right  half of the data screen.  Just nothing happened, not even an error message.

My Dell laptop with Win7  driver worked ok and I believe it’s a Prolific driver.

                                                        GENERAL COMMENTS

Some comments on what I assume the following would be the case with all computers when working properly:

I could not export  a  file unless there was data entered into at least one of the memory locations. My friends  TH-F6A had no memories and I thought perhaps if I  exported a blank CHIRP data sheet I would  have a file to make my own entries then import and it would go to the radio.  When I say I could not export a file , I  could  click on export, give it a name with either the .csv or .chirp file extension, then go through the next steps and all looked ok but  a file was not saved. As soon as I entered data in one memory location then the export process worked as one would expect..

I like the ‘live’ memory storage  that works like this: click on a memory location and get a blue line and click on edit,  then after you enter all the info you want into the window that pops up and click on ok, the info entry window disappears and almost at the same time the screen will ‘flicker’ and the memory info appears on the CHIRP memory data screen and is also sent to the radio and if you disconnect the data programming cable and hit MR for memory recall it will be there !   

The fact that you program the  radio ‘live’ without having to save and upload  to the radio had me confused. In  fact I think its true you CAN’T upload as such. If you   >file>export  the  data you have entered then go and call that data up with an editing program , for instance on Xcel if its saves as a .csv file, and make changes to the data and save that  file and then  go back to the CHIRP program    >file>import and click on the same file and when it appears on the CHIRP data screen it also ‘uploads’ changes and all to the radio at the same time. Part of the ‘live’ programming concept I guess. 

I hope this helps somewhat. I was really confused for a while how the process worked  and what the windows  message  meant on  the    >Radio>Download from Radio     when the process started. 

The CHIRP program really seems to work nice and to me all programs are confusing until you are familiar with them or write them.  I have  written intermod programs  for tubes and transistors and other  applications  and programs to test space batteries, controlling all the charge, discharge routines, taking data and displaying data and trying to write instructions that are  ‘all emcompassing’ is very difficult, especially  with all the different computer motherboard hierarchy out there. 

Again thanks  to Jim for his help,  let me know if  you find any errors and questions welcome.  I hope I explained all good enough to get my ideas across. Your individual experiences can also help others.

73 de rolan w3fdk



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