[chirp_users] Programming guide for beginners

[eric oyen]

there is a section one should add: chirp and blind user support. right now, the only OS I can get chirp to be accessible on is Linux (Ubuntu in particular). Its frustrating that I can't use it on my primary OS (OS X Lion) because the interface for the program appears invisible to voiceover.

Now, there are a few radios that a blind user can program without the program (like the ken wood ™-D700 or any other radio with a speech interface. Unfortunately, most of the chinese radios only speak the top level menu items, leaving us blind hams to have to read the instructions multiple times and try to follow them and hope we get it right. I would certainly like a way to return the firmware to make this more possible (and dump the chinese language speaking interface while at it). Not sure this can be done, but it would be a worthy project to undertake.

anyway, thats my comments for now.

-eric
N7ZZT

On Nov 22, 2013, at 3:18 PM, Mike Agner wrote:

> I think the wiki that already exists could be quite a resource for a 
> programming guide for beginners. It would take some effort of each of 
> the members that has a particular radio, but it could - and likely 
> should - be done
> 
> Looking through YouTube is all fine and good but if you do a search like 
> was suggested recently (such as 'program uv-5r chirp') you're going to 
> come up with a lot of non-related stuff - even stuff that doesn't have 
> anything to do with the uv-5r or the chirp software
> 
> If we had a single page for each radio that listed the various YouTube 
> videos and other tricks, it would go a VERY long way to making such a guide.
> 
> Some questions that could be asked might include;
> 
> - What is the SKU of the OEM cable for this radio (put another way, what 
> is the correct model number of the original manufacturer's cable)
> - What do you need to do to put the radio into a programming mode (as I 
> understand it, some radios you have to go through a menu to do this. It 
> would be helpful if this were documented)
> - Known issues from importing data and how to fix them
> - Any known programming issues unique to this radio, and how to fix them
> 
> That's just scratching the surface. No doubt there are other such 
> questions that people have had that have come up over and over again and 
> should be documented in a single spot
> 
> The real power becomes evident if each model number that's found in the 
> front page becomes a link to that radio's page.  Those of you familiar 
> with the RadioReference wiki know how easy it then becomes to look up a 
> particular model.
> 
> Anything that's common to all radios could simply point to that page - 
> for example the model support page could be a 'common' page for each 
> radio so that someone can quickly look up what
> features for that radio could be programmed.
> 
> I'm unfamiliar with Redmine, but if I could build the listings (by 
> radio) then someone can change the listing to Redmine's language, and 
> we'd be on our way.  I know some of you are RadioReference
> members, so you know the amount of work I did in the early years of 
> building the wiki there - it started with barely 100 pages, and grew to 
> over 4000 when I resigned the admin status.  You may
> also know that, along with the author of the software, I wrote the 
> FreeScan user guide, so I have some experience in writing software 
> guides of this type
> 
> I don't think it would be too tough to gather this stuff together - if 
> the membership is willing to contribute to the effort. I could be point 
> for this, but someone would need to do the Redmine code once enough 
> information was accum'ed. With Xmas coming (and maybe folks getting new 
> radios) this project is timely as well as informative. This would, 
> obviously, be subject to whomever is the sysop/admin of the web page, 
> but to me, it's well worth considering. I don't doubt that we have a lot 
> of newcomers out there (myself included, at least insofar as the 
> software is concerned) so whatever we can gather in a single spot is 
> worthwhile.
> 
> Comments?    Mike
> 
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