[chirp_users] New to CHIRP and issue with Baofeng

Jim Unroe
Fri Sep 28 02:33:32 PDT 2018


On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 11:12 PM Berrie Maas <berriemaas at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I am new to CHIRP, and a fairly new HAM as well.
> I have CHIRP installed, and try to connect to my BAOFENG UV-82.
> CHIRP will not let me select a COM port. I am using the cable that BAOFENG sells.
> The cable came with a disk, but it is in Chinese, and when I try to change the setting to English, it says it cannot write to the disk. Starting the BAOFENG software (BF480), it is all in Chinese and with question marks as I don't have Chinese fonts.
>
> It probably is a driver issue, but I don't know where to get the right driver.
> Any help greatly appreciated!
> Berrie

Hi Berrie,

Unless you purchase the programming software and programming cable
from RT Systems, my advice is to disregard any CD that comes with a
programming cable. At the end of the day it usually won't get you any
closer to the goal of programming your radio and everything you need
is easily available on-line.

For example the BF480 software is for programming a Baofeng BF-888s
radio and not a Baofeng UV-82 radio. So uninstall it at your earliest
convenience.

A "genuine" Baofeng programming cable will in most cases have a
counterfeit Prolific USB-to-TTL chip inside. Baofeng has started to
ship programming cables with the WCH CH-340 chip, but if this has one,
it would probably work OK out-of-the-box.

The issue when using a programming cable that has counterfeit Prolific
chip with Windows is that the device driver supplied to Microsoft by
the Prolific company and automatically installed by Windows is
intentionally incompatible with a counterfeit Prolific chip. Genuine
Prolific chips in programming cables are very rare. The workaround is
to either purchase a programming cable that has a chip from a
different chip vendor (FTDI branded chips popular) or to download
install and select an older Prolific v3.2.0.0 device driver.

I have many radios donated/loaned to me and nearly all are supplied
with programming cables containing counterfeit Prolific USB-to-TTL
chips. Using the v3.2.0.0 device driver with my Windows 7 system works
100% for me for both genuine (very rare) and counterfeit Prolific
chips. The page at the link below shows you how to check to see which
chip is in your programming cable and provides a link to the Prolific
v3.2.0.0 device driver and instructions for installing and selecting
it if your chip is a Prolific type chip.

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

Jim KC9HI



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