[chirp_users] UV-5R and volume.

[Jim Unroe]

On Sat, Jun 8, 2019 at 6:58 AM Dennis Wage <dwage at dwage.com> wrote:
>
> Pertaining to the UV-5R series of phones, I have seen numerous times that the volume needs to be turned up.
>
> Let's once and for all dispel or confirm this.
>
> I for one have found, and it makes total sense to me, that the volume has absolutely nothing to do with data being transferred to a computer with the data cable.
>
> Please confirm or deny.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dennis M. Wage (W9BOQ)
>
> 245 Corum Hill Road
> Castalian Springs, TN 37031
> (615) 310-4242 Cell
> (615) 562-5128 Home
> http://hammondb3organ.net
> http://overdubs.net

This too does not make sense to me.

The pinout for the 2-pin Kenwood style plug used on the majority of
these Baofeng (and Baofeng like) radios has the analog speaker/mike
audio wires separate from the digital RX data/TX data wires used for
programming. The programming cable only contains the 3 wires needed
for programming (RX data, TX data and ground). The programming cable
does not contain the wires for speaker audio (SPK+) and mic audio
(MIC+) because neither are reauired for programming (it is the
non-existent SPK+ wire that has its signal level adjusted by the
volume control knob).

I have been programming many brands of radios with many kinds of
programming cables using many different computers having various
operating systems for over 7 years. I have never ever had to
intentionally rotate the the volume knob to a point any further than
it takes to provide the "click" that supplies power to the radio
(which coincides with the lowest volume level).

That being said, I have had email exchanges with those trying to solve
their programming cable issue that eventually sorted out the issue by
turning up the volume and swore they the replicate the issue by
turning the volume down. To me this should not be the case. Perhaps
there is a design flaw that shows up in some of these cheap radios (or
radio/programming cable combination) that has the data TTL levels
affected by volume control?

Jim KC9HI