[chirp_users] Baofeng UV-9R Pro - flashing causes severe squelch problem

[Jim Unroe]

On Thu, Feb 1, 2024 at 6:24 PM <d at deutrino.net> wrote:
>
> Hello again,
>
> I obtained a pair of brand new Baofeng UV-9R Pro units a few months ago and promptly flashed one with CHIRP.
>
> Unfortunately it seems that flashing the unit causes some kind of strange problem with squelch. I've seen this referenced a few times elsewhere when searching the problem, forum posts, Amazon reviews etc, though I don't know if this happens with all units or just some (and would love to hear info from anyone who's flashed them).
>
> Observations, hopefully somewhat accurate:
>
> 1. After flashing the radio with CHIRP, when it is tuned to a continuous channel such as NOAA weather radio, the squelch cuts in and out so badly that the radio is more or less unusable.
>
> 2. The radio, before flashing, and after factory reset, reliably receives the same channel without squelch problems when placed in the same location, which indicates that the problem is not one of low signal or interference.
>
> 3. Setting the squelch to 0 in the menu does not have a positive effect on the problem.
>
> 4. The squelch problem can be temporarily "cured" by pressing one of the buttons, e.g. the menu button. At this point, the squelch will perform normally for several seconds before going back to the broken behavior, in the case of the menu button, possibly when the button press "times out".
>
> Has anyone else noticed this or know of a fix or workaround?
>
> I am happy to assist debugging if desired. Just trying to see if there is anything I've missed before opening an issue.
>
> Thanks-

Unfortunately Baofeng made changes last year to the majority of their
radios with 128 channels that made them incompatible with CHIRP. It
took a lot of time, money, downloading from a lot of radios and
staring at a lot of image files to figure out what had changed. Then
it took quite a bit of time to develop a suitable workaround for the
issue. So there could be a couple of things that happened.

1. If you uploaded an image from a radio other than the one you were
programming (let's call it a 'foreign' image), then due to the
changes, the uploaded image may have been incompatible with the radio
that it was uploaded to.

2. If you used and version of CHIRP-next that was not yet updated to
handle the changes that Baofeng made to these radios and your radio
has the 'dropped byte' issue (the debug.log will say if your radio has
this issue), then you image can have dropped bytes in the Aux memory
area and/or have some or all of Aux memory set to 0xFF values. The
driver for these 'waterproof' models was the last to get updated.

Either of these issues can cause squelch problems or other side effects.

My suggestion would be to open a ticket. Download from the radio, save
a debug.log and attach it to the ticket along with the downloaded
image. Also include the backup image that you made prior to making
changes to your radios channels and settings.

Jim KC9HI