On May 22, 2013, at 11:13 PM, Tom Hayward wrote:
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 8:51 PM, Michael David <macd81@gmail.com> wrote:
Greetings,

I just recently picked up a TH-F6A and love chirp!  However, I've got a few issues:

1) Entering Live mode.

With the radio in PC mode, sometimes I can't get it to download / enter live
mode.. but it's flaky. I have fewer issues with 0.3.1 stable and 20130510 than I do
with the newer dailies. When it fails, the screen stays empty after initiating download,
and then if I try again, it says access denied and I have to quit the program.

FWIW, the TH-F6A code hasn't been touched since 0.2.3.

There's nothing at Chirp's communication level that would generate
"access denied". This must be coming from your operating system, and
it is probably raised by your USB serial driver. If I were you I would
replace the cable with one of higher quality. WA8LMF recently did a
good write-up on the differences between USB serial chipsets:
http://wa8lmf.net/ham/USB-Serial-Dongles.htm

Thanks for the feedback. I believe the cable to be solid.

I'm using a DB9 radio programming cable connect to a USB Keyspan dongle 
that I've had for a few years and use to configure Cisco devices. The same dongle
and cable work flawlessly with the Baofeng UV-5R and chirp. Also, I don't notice any 
issues when using the Kenwood MCP-F6F7 software.

I believe there is a bug somewhere here, but it's a minor issue since once Chirp
successfully downloads / connects, it's smooth sailing. 

2) Tune Step on Import.

A friend took time to put various freqs into CHIRP for his UV-5R and sent me a copy of
his file. The file includes frequencies that do not land on a 5kHz step, for example FRS
frequencies. The file from the UV-5R does not include a tune step field, while the
Kenwood TH-F6A has a tune step field.

If entering one of those frequencies into Chirp individually, setting a frequency that doesn't
fall on a step will return error 93 "radio refused". However, if by import, the import screen
doesn't realize it would be a problem entry and gray it out. When the import runs, the
affected channels are skipped quickly (while successfully programmed channels are
programmed at a slower pace.)

For successful imports, the tune step is defaulted to 5kHz. A workaround could be to
take Freq in MHz and divide by .005 and see if (floor(freq) != freq) then default the tune
step to 6.25, or otherwise calculate it.

Chirp does try to guess the step size during import, and if your radio
doesn't support the step it guesses, it will gray out that memory and
not import it. You're welcome to look over that code and see if you
can improve its intelligence.

I'll take a look.  I've been meaning to dig into Python more anyway.

3) Mode on import:

NFM is specified for some entries in the UV-5R file. The Kenwood does have an FMN
mode though. If NFM could be mapped to FM at the user's discretion, that would be useful
rather than kicking it out.

IMHO, it's never okay to transmit FM on a NFM channel. You'll annoy
anyone receiving your signal. Outside the amateur service, you may
even be violating the license (for example, in the US Part 90 VHF is
all NFM). To avoid accidental interference, Chirp will not
automatically change the mode during an import. If you want to
manually change the mode for a set of channels, use the batch editor
by selecting multiple channels and right clicking "Edit". This is best
done in a CSV file before import.

I agree with you, of course. However, In this case, these are frequencies that are outside
of the TX range of the radio. I just want to scan / monitor them. And also the TH-F6A does
have a narrowband mode, however it's set for the A and B VFOs rather than per channel
(unfortunately.)

I can edit the CSV (as I've done) but I figured I'd mention this anyway as a stumbling block
I had as a new user.

Thanks again,
Michael


-- 
Michael A. David -- macd81@gmail.com