Dear all,
OBSERVATIONS
If the TH–F6A ( and probably others) CHIRP program is working properly, when you click on >Radio>Download from Radio and then OK , I think, you should see a status bar at the bottom of the data screen, right half, with the memories being loaded scrolling by and it will take about 30 seconds to do the 400 memory locations (0 –399) on the TH-F6A.
First of all, when the CHIRP download radio data screen comes up be sure there is at least one line of memory displayed by going to row numbers located at the top of what would be memory data, the memory range inputs, and be sure that at least one memory line is there by, say start at 0 and end at 1 then click GO , that should give one line of data with zeros if the radio has no memories stored. At least I think that is what was the case with the TH-F6A I was playing with.
I hope the below info on what I have learned by helping a friend to get his Kenwood TH-F6A programming to work will benefit someone in some way.
My friend has XP on his computer and thanks to KC9HI , Jim Unroe, and his patience we got it going by loading the driver from the URL.
http://www.miklor.com/uv5r/UV5R-Drivers.html
Without this driver when running CHIRP and doing the download process the CHIRP data screen would come up but no memories were shown scrolling on the status bar at the bottom right half of the data screen. Just nothing happened, not even an error message.
My Dell laptop with Win7 driver worked ok and I believe it’s a Prolific driver.
GENERAL COMMENTS
Some comments on what I assume the following would be the case with all computers when working properly:
I could not export a file unless there was data entered into at least one of the memory locations. My friends TH-F6A had no memories and I thought perhaps if I exported a blank CHIRP data sheet I would have a file to make my own entries then import and it would go to the radio. When I say I could not export a file , I could click on export, give it a name with either the .csv or .chirp file extension, then go through the next steps and all looked ok but a file was not saved. As soon as I entered data in one memory location then the export process worked as one would expect..
I like the ‘live’ memory storage that works like this: click on a memory location and get a blue line and click on edit, then after you enter all the info you want into the window that pops up and click on ok, the info entry window disappears and almost at the same time the screen will ‘flicker’ and the memory info appears on the CHIRP memory data screen and is also sent to the radio and if you disconnect the data programming cable and hit MR for memory recall it will be there !
The fact that you program the radio ‘live’ without having to save and upload to the radio had me confused. In fact I think its true you CAN’T upload as such. If you >file>export the data you have entered then go and call that data up with an editing program , for instance on Xcel if its saves as a .csv file, and make changes to the data and save that file and then go back to the CHIRP program >file>import and click on the same file and when it appears on the CHIRP data screen it also ‘uploads’ changes and all to the radio at the same time. Part of the ‘live’ programming concept I guess.
I hope this helps somewhat. I was really confused for a while how the process worked and what the windows message meant on the >Radio>Download from Radio when the process started.
The CHIRP program really seems to work nice and to me all programs are confusing until you are familiar with them or write them. I have written intermod programs for tubes and transistors and other applications and programs to test space batteries, controlling all the charge, discharge routines, taking data and displaying data and trying to write instructions that are ‘all emcompassing’ is very difficult, especially with all the different computer motherboard hierarchy out there.
Again thanks to Jim for his help, let me know if you find any errors and questions welcome. I hope I explained all good enough to get my ideas across. Your individual experiences can also help others.
73 de rolan w3fdk