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.
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