[chirp_users] Baofeng UV-5R MK4

[Jim Unroe]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 10:34 PM ken smith <ken.smith29 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have successfully been able to use Chirp to upload .csv files etc. All communications between the software and radio seem to work. However, when manually loading HAM repeater information, the upload info seems to not take correctly. For example, I used the software to put in a 2m frequency, no tone, “-“ offset at 0.60 and low transmit power. After the upload, the radio shows the correct frequency and memory name but that’s it. The transmit power shows Medium (which isn’t even an option in the software) and also shows both “+” and “-“ on the radio screen. When keying the mike, it shows CT as if there is a tone being transmitted. Something is not syncing right but I am not getting any error messages. Any help here is appreciated.

It is hard to know what you may have done wrong without having access
to the CSV file or the actual "image" sent to the radio. I will do my
best to guess.

These UV-5R and UV-82 like radios do not use or store the shift
direction or offset in a memory channel. They aren't required. For
this reason, the SFT-D and OFFSET menus only function in VFO mode.

What is stored in a memory channel is an RX frequency and a TX
frequency. When the RX frequency and TX frequency are not the same (as
they would not be the same for a repeater, odd-split, cross-band or TX
disabled channel), there is a "+-" indication in the upper status
display area. This is to let the user know the RX frequency and TX
frequency of the selected channel are not the same. CHIRP lets users
enter the parameters for a repeater as a frequency, shift direction
and offset, but in the case of a UV-5R and similar radios, CHIRP
computes the TX frequency and stores that in the "image" to be sent to
the radio because that is what it requires.

Since your radio can display "MID" as a TXP option, you have a radio
with 3 TX power levels. You are most likely incorrectly selecting and
using the UV-5R model when downloading from your radio. The UV-5R
model selection is for a UV-5R like radio with 2 TX power levels. A
UV-5R image with the TXP set to HIGH uploaded to a radio with 3 TX
power levels would be correctly set to MID in a radio with 3 TX power
levels. To work with your radio correctly, you should be selecting
BF-F8HP, which is for UV-5R like radio models with 3 TX power levels,
to program your radio.

If there is a CT showing up in the left status display area when the
[PTT] button button is pressed and nothing showing when it is
released, you must Tone Mode set to Tone and the radio is picking up
the default 88.5 Hz tone. It should be set to "(None)" in CHIRP and in
the CSV file it would be {blank} (in other words there would be
nothing between the commas (",,").

One way to help understand how the fields of a CSV file should look
would be to program some working memories in the CHIRP spreadsheet
style memory editor and export them to a CSV file. An easy way to get
working channels would be to import some from RepeaterBook or load one
of the stock config files.

Jim KC9HI