Step by step on using Chirp to program Your Baofeng (or similar knockoff) handheld
bill johnson
bill johnson
Program a Baofeng Radio with CHIRP - Geek Prepper 20161203
http://geekprepper.org/program-a-baofeng-radio-with-chirp/
Program a Baofeng Radio with CHIRP
It makes sense that your
handheld radio should be able to take the place of multiple radios. Want to add
all the channels you need quickly and easily? Let’s program a Baofeng Radio
with CHIRP to get the job done.
Program a Baofeng Radio with CHIRP The Baofeng handheld radios are inexpensive but cover many frequencies, making them the Swiss Army Knives of the budget ham radio community.
The BaoFeng UV5R, is an amazing, yet economically priced radio. It can cover a multitude of channels and frequencies.
The Bands these cover (Not all of these are legal to broadcast on, but listening should be fine – see FCC Part 95 Rules)
2 Meter
70 cm FRS (Family Radio Service)
GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service)
MURS (Multi-Use Radio Service)
Marine VHF Public service Frequencies
NOAA Weather Band FM radio (listen only)
That is quite a list of frequencies. While it’s not legal to transmit on all these frequencies if your not a HAM or if the device isn’t approved on the FCC Part 95, that really won’t apply after SHTF. I’d take an FCC fine over death any day!
Preparing to Program Your BaoFeng
Software I recommend CHIRP, to program your BaoFeng, so this post will refer to that software. CHIRP is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, so regardless of your operating system, you are covered.
Download the version you need and install it.
Programming Cable
Before you can program your radio with CHIRP, you’ll need the BaoFeng USB programming cable.
I did NOT use the driver disk that came with the usb cable, instead I grabbed the drivers over at http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_Drivers.php (an awesome BaoFeng informational page).
Download and install the proper drivers for your USB cable (probably Prolific). Programming Your BaoFeng
Step 1 Open/Run CHIRP,
connect your BaoFeng and plug it into an USB port on your computer. First you’ll need to pull a copy of the existing config from your radio. In CHIRP, select RADIO > Download From Radio
Program a Baofeng Radio with CHIRP It makes sense that your handheld radio should be able to take the place of multiple radios. Want to add all the channels
Programming Your BaoFeng You’ll need to give CHIRP some information about your radio and what COM Port (or which /dev/XXXX in Linux and Mac OS) it’s connected to. This is on a Windows PC Once this step has been completed, it should list any channels that you have already programmed into memory.
Step 2
Now in CHIRP go to FILE > Open Stock Config and Select the group of channels that you’d like to add to your BaoFeng (This seems to be missing on the Mac OS version of CHIRP, fear not, I’ve included most of these “channels” in baofeng-freqs.csv )
In this screenshot, I have opened Marine VHF Channels You can select the channels or all channels using the hot-key combinations for your OS Windows (and most Linux systems unless you’ve remapped stuff) Select all = CTRL + A (keys on your keyboard) Select individual Channels = CTRL + mouse click Select Range of Channels = Mouse click to highlight start then, SHIFT + mouse click on the last in the range that you’d like to select Then CTRL + C (or EDIT > COPY ) to copy the selected channels
Step 3 Switch back to your BaoFeng Tab
http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_Drivers.php
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USB Cables and Drivers
for Microsoft XP, Vista Win7, Win8, Win10 |
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Chipsets: - New Prolific Drivers may give a FALSE Positive: (6-2015) Windows will now load the newest
Prolific driver 3.6.78.350 when inserting your cable. A Yellow Triangle may
not always appear in Device Manager as described below, however, when you
insert the cable into your radio, the transmitter will turn on. More detail can be found |