- Tried "Device Manager" to make sure I had the correct com port
selected. A couple of times, it would show "Com 3" for example when it really was on Com 4 according to device manager. Just making sure I didn't have a Com Port selection problem.
I'm not sure what you mean here by "it would show com 3". You need to point CHIRP to whatever port number device manager tells you.
- First, I installed the driver from the Chinese USB cable supplier,
which says it is a "Prolific"2303 All-In-One" Then tried Woxun's "Windows "USB Driver for XP" with the same result, and finally Woxun's "When All Else Fails" driver.
Does the cable work in any other software? Is it fully inserted into the radio? Have you tried the OEM software?
Is the radio transmitting when you're doing any of this? The baofeng radios don't have proper filtering on their external connectors, which will often cause them to lock into a transmit state if the cable is connected. This seems to be due to RF entering the line going back into the radio and overloading some circuit responsible for keying the radio. I have seen situations where someone plugs the cable into the radio, which causes a brief transmission, but that transmission locks the radio into TX mode continuously until the cable is unplugged. Since the radio won't respond to the PC while transmitting, CHIRP gets no response.
- Not sure where to find the debug log. Excuse my ignorance.
Once again, the "how to report issues" page has a top-level section called "Getting your debug log":
http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/How_To_Report_Issues