Hello, I am trying to program a new-to-me ICOM 2720 using my macOS Montery. I am using CHIRP next-20240111. I've struggled to find any instructions on using CHIRP with this particular radio, but do see it on the supported radio list. From what I can tell, my Mac recognizes the Prolific USB cable I am using (it appears/disappears from my "System Report" when it is plugged/unplugged. However, CHIRP's "Help Me" feature from the Radio Download screen does not seem to detect which port the USB cable is connected to. Any assistance with troubleshooting or next steps would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
Just so you know, it has nothing to do with the radio and everything to do with your cable (and macOS). I think any USB device will be enumerated in system info even if it there's no driver for it, so seeing it there doesn't mean much. What you really need for CHIRP is the device name (i.e. /dev/cu.something) and that will only show up if the system has a driver for your cable. The "help me" tool is trying to figure out that name for you, but if no driver is loaded, there's nothing CHIRP can do.
So, you may need to figure out which prolific chip it has and make sure you've got a driver for it installed. It's also possible that it doesn't identify as a "normal" prolific device and thus any driver you have (or may find) won't "claim" it. Unfortunately, this is all pretty difficult to do on macOS because (a) most of the time everything just works (b) not a lot of people use serial stuff on macOS lately and Apple doesn't have any supported devices they care about keeping it working. That said, I use macOS almost exclusively and very infrequently have a cable that doesn't just work. Part of that is because I *always* opt for an FTDI-based device when I can, but even prolific things usually work.
So, depending on where your cable came from, you may or may not be able to find some of this information from a vendor.
--Dan