Hi Larry,
now, i only have one issue w/ chirp. i have a UV-5R and got all 100 of my channels programmed into it. i saved it as an xx.img file. then, i need to send this same file to my UV-5RHP; but, when i open it and try to upload, i cant; the radio box is grayed out so i cant change to the BF-8 so it will not send it to my HP unit. how do i save/rename/whatever to get the file into my HP H/T ?
You must not directly upload an image from one UV-5R style radio to another UV-5R style radio unless the firmware version exactly matches. CHIRP has been programmed to check for a match and to stop the upload when they do not match.
What you do is use the CHIRP Import feature to transfer channels from one radio brand/mode/firmware version to another. To make the channel assignments of your UV-5RHP exactly the same (except the power level) as the ones in your UV-5R, do this:
1.0 launch CHIRP 2.0 open a tab is compatible with your UV-5RHP (it will have "Baofeng BF-F8HP:" as part of the tab's label) by doing one of the following 2.1 download from your UV-5RHP 2.2 load a previously saved image from your UV-5RHP 3.0 select and erase all existing channels from the current tab 3.1 click a channel row to highlight it 3.2 press Ctrl-A to highlight all 128 channel rows 3.3 press the Delete key 4.0 import the image from your UV-5R into the tab for your UV-5RHP 4.1 click "File" 4.2 click "Import" 4.3 click the button that shows "CHIRP Files (*.chirp)" 4.4 choose "CHIRP Radio Images (*.img)" from the list that appears 4.5 locate and load the "xx.img" file (the image for your UV-5R) 4.6 click the [OK] button
At this point the current tab has all of the channel assignments from your UV-5R. It can be save as an image or uploaded to your UV-5RHP. But the power levels may not be set to the power level that you want.
What Import does is match up the power level of the source radio to the closest power level of the target radio. So channels set to LOW on the UV-5R will be set to LOW on the UV-5RHP. Channels set to HIGH on the UV-5RHP will be set to MID on the UV-5RHP. So to quickly set them all to HIGH power, do this:
1.0 select all existing channels 1.1 click a channel row to highlight it 1.2 press Ctrl-A to highlight all 128 channel rows 1.3 click the [Properties] button 2.0 select the HIGH power level 2.1 tick the box to the left of the "Power:" setting 2.2 select the HIGH power setting 3.0 click the [OK] button
At this point the current tab has all of the channel assignments of the UV-5R and all of the power levels set to HIGH. It can be saved to an image or uploaded to your UV-5RHP.
If you only want a few channels set to HIGH power, you can selectively highlight the channel rows and the above procedure will only change those channels.
Jim KC9HI