[chirp_users] Having Trouble with Chirp and Windows 8

[Jim Unroe]

On Sat, Jul 21, 2018 at 1:05 AM, Robert Smits <bob at rsmits.ca> wrote:
> I’ve been having trouble getting Chirp to work with my Baofeng GT3 and a
> Windows 8 machine. Chirp just cannot read the usb port and the radio. I have
> tried a different cable (that ironically worked under Win 7) and this cable
> worked with a different radio (same model) and Win 10. The software I have
> installed is chirp-daily-20180707-installer.exe. When the cable is plugged
> in I can see the description in device manager.

There are many reasons that can keep CHIRP from doing its job. Most
are related to the programming cable. No programming software can work
if there is not a complete and working connection between the radio
and computer.

It would help if you could provide a debug.log file and/or the exact
error message. Without these, I will run through the most common
things that most Baofeng encounter.

The #1 cause of trouble for Baofeng radios used with Windows is that
most low cost programming cables purchased with these low cost radios
are manufactured with a counterfeit version of a Prolific USB-to-TTL
chip. The device driver automatically installed by Windows is
intentionally incompatible with unauthorized copies of Prolific chips.
The work around is download, install and select an older device
driver. This page shows you how to check for which device driver is
installed and also provided the steps to downgrade the device driver
if necessary.

http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_Drivers.php

The #2 cause of trouble for Baofeng radios is the 2-pin plug is not
fully inserted into the speaker/mic socket of the radio. This is
especially common for radios with the GT-3 style case. There is a
raised ridge around the socket well that contacts the plastic shell of
the 2-pin plug which keeps the pins from being fully inserted. The
work around for this is to trim away the part of the plastic shell
that the ridge of the case is interfering with. This page (scroll down
to the GTE section) has pictures of the problem and they show needs to
be done to eliminate the interference (click on the picture to see a
larger version that is easier to see).

http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_ErrorMess.php#error1

Jim KC9HI