[chirp_users] Two Baofeng UV-5R radios but only one works with CHIRP

[Jim Unroe]

On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 1:38 PM, Jay Planalp <jay at planalpmanagement.com> wrote:
> Hello - I am a new CHIRP user and have two Baofeng UV-5R radios.  I was able
> to get CHIRP to communicate with one radio and uploaded some memory
> channels.  However, when I tried the second radio, I got an error message
> "The upload was stopped because the firmware of the image (Ver BFB297) does
> not match that of the radio (BFB299 BFB297).  However, when I power on the
> radios holding the 3 key down, I see that the firmware version of both is
> the same - BFB297.  How do I resolve this???  Thanks.  Jay
> --
> -----------------------------------------------
> Jay C. Planalp
> Planalp Management Consulting
> www.planalpmanagement.com
> -----------------------------------------------

Jay,

The firmware of the 1st radio has a "real" BFB297 firmware. It was the
last version released that shows its real firmware version in the [3]
key + Power-on Message. From BFB299 and newer (your second radio), the
"real" firmware version was hidden from the user and the radio
masquerades as BFB297 in the [3] key + Power-on Message. This
continues even today with the latest N5R2407 firmware. The only
exception has been BFS313 firmware displays BFS297.

You need to download from your BFB299 radio to CHIRP because you will
need to keep a file for each radio. Once you have a tab open in CHIRP
that is compatible with this radio, then you can click File -> Import,
change the button that says "CHIRP Files (*.chirp)" to "CHIRP Radio
Images (*.img)" and you will be able to select and import the channels
from the image file belonging to your "real" BFB297 radio into this
tab. Once imported, change any other settings and upload to your
BFB299 radio.

Jim KC9HI