[Baofeng UV-5X GMRS]

9 minutes ago, Lscott said:

I considered trying something like this but using a Hex-editor to directly change the frequency entries. I though about getting a super cheap Kenwood "Protalk" radio, the ones that have the fixed business frequencies, and load the modified code plug to the radio. I installed the programming software to experiment with before trying to buy a radio. Looking at the code plug using a Hex-editor I can see the frequencies in it.

Some of the radios the frequencies are hard coded in the radio's firmware. Those you likely can't do much or anything to change it. Others the frequencies are only hard coded into the radio programming software. Those you can likely muck around with the raw code plug to bypass the programming software limits provided you can get the code plug to load into the radio.

Oh, some of the radios use encryption on the code plugs to prevent people from doing modifications or getting other propriety info out of them, like read/write passwords etc. So, if you don't know how it's done you can't decrypt the code plug, modify it then encrypt it to load into the radio. Some of the later model Kenwood's encrypt the code plug, which included the version of the software used to build it AND the serial number used to install it on the computer when I decrypted a few to look at. Some look like they even save the serial number of the radio in there too. A few of the CCR's look like they also do something that obscures the data too, at least I didn't see anything obvious.

For Chirp to read the radio, modify the code plug and write it back requires the developer to reverse engineer the manufacture's code plug structure. The manufactures don't document this of course. Unless one is careful you can easily "brick" a radio by writing junk to the wrong area in memory. If you're lucky you saved a functioning code plug to your computer first so if things go bad you can attempt to recover the radio by writing a known good code plug back in to it.

Worse case I can hopefully reflash with the factory tooling, or I'm out $50 for a new pair of radios. Not a huge loss. But so far, everything works as desired.

[Baofeng UV-5X GMRS]

1 hour ago, SEIGLER001 said:

Only trouble accesing repeater is they desense easliy, which I would expect at their pricepoint.

Please share the additional channel trick!

I need more SMA Male antennas. I hated this at first, but  having that femail stem is probalby better in the long run. Feels much more solid than the Baofengs I've torqued to death with a long antenna.

 

I figured out the repeater issue I was having. Radios were too close to each other. So long as I'm not holding hands with the person I'm talking to everything is fine.

I'll preface this: I take no responsibility if you brick/break your radio. I do not know the legal ramifications and accept no responsibility there either. I recommend AGAINST doing this. Misconfiguration in this manner may TX on freqs you aren't allowed to, which is illegal. It's up to you to confirm the TX freq before pushing it to your radio.

I reached out to Radioddity regarding additional GMRS TX channels and they did say it's in the works, so there's an official patch on the way which sounds like it will allow TX on all channels in the radio. Would be best to wait for that in my opinion.

If through all that you still want to go the backdoor route of programming additional TX channels, read on.

If you activate Developer mode in Chirp, you gain the ability to add TX channels via the 3rd tab labeled "Browser". From there navigate to root>memory, each one of these is a stored channel. The "txfreq" value is what you want to adjust. Set to whatever the "rxfreq" value is +500000, that will put the TX at a +5MHz offset. After you do this you cannot change anything on the normal Memories tab or it resets all channels "txfreq" above 30 to 166666665 which disables TX.

Alternatively, there's a developer module in one of the Chirp bugs you can load which treats the UV-5X as a UV-5R, allowing you to write whatever values you want to the normal Memories tab. I think this method will disappear as it allows setting TX frequencies outside of the GMRS approved freqs very easily. The other method does as well, but it's a diag mode and is super clunky to use.

Still trying to figure out how to enable TX in VFO mode. But that's honestly less important so long as I can save values to memory channels I'm happy.

Again, the above is at your own risk. You may break or explode your radio, I have not tested the entirety so ramifications are unknown. So far as I know, neither Radioddity not Chirp approve of doing this. So you might void the warranty on your device as they may not be designed to operate in this fashion.

[Baofeng UV-5X GMRS]

47 minutes ago, SEIGLER001 said:

Yeah those 463 Mhz values are real, not good. Jim with CHIRP IDed the problem and should have a fix soon. Yay! (but seems like it is Baofengs prob for even allowing that to be possible!)

I'll have to test the WX channels...if I can get them to receive! First listen in the house and I hear nothing (I am 40 miles away but all my other HTs receive OK.)

Have you reprogrammed the squelch levels? Baofengs have weird defaults. Using chirp under other settings you can reset. I do a 5/10/15/20/30/40/50/65/80 arrangement. Makes level 3-5 a sweet spot and 9 really clamps it down!

Have you had any issues accessing repeaters with your units? The one near me I can hear open squelch but is entirely silent on my handset. On my Cobra Micro-talk I can hear myself plain as day. The Cobra does have a wider emitter bandwidth which might be causing that issue.

I did adjust the squelch settings today in multiples of 6 starting with 0 then 2. Seems to work really well.

Also found a couple of ways to program additional TX channels into the radio in order to preload more GMRS repeater configs. Is messy and probably has a downside somewhere which I have yet to find. Hoping Chirp makes an official way to do that.

Tossed a Signal Stuff Signal Stick antenna onto both of mine today and wow they pickup signal much clearer now. You'll want the SMA Male connectors and a rubber spacer if you go that route.

[Baofeng UV-5X GMRS]

4 hours ago, SEIGLER001 said:

Yes I see the +- on repeater channels.

Can you (or anyone) regularly re-create the 0.5MHz. glitch? If so add to the bug report here:
Bug #9255: Illegal offset programming possible, and apparently not fixable in Chirp - CHIRP (danplanet.com)


 

I can sorta confirm. I don't have an RTL-SDR or other spectral analyzer handy, checked a repeater I had programmed in and confirmed I was able to trigger before. Doesn't key up if set to 0.5MHz so it seems like it's allowing a write to other values. I did just do a pull from my radios and both had 4-5 repeater channels where the offset had glitched to 0.5MHz. Noticed it the first few times when I moved channels around in CHIRP and the 5 would change to a 0.5. Missed it at some point and had to use the factory tool to fix it.

Another radio oddity (heh), the squelch does weird things on my unit. If I pick a local NOAA site with TDR on and SQL set to 5 it reads fine and reliably leaves it open and audible. With TDR set to off squelch is closed and I can't hear NOAA regardless of what channel or A/B setting I pick, until I drop squelch to 0-1. Then it opens. The firmware on these seems to be very buggy still. Is it too much to ask for 128 GMRS repeater configurations?

[Baofeng UV-5X GMRS]

1 hour ago, SEIGLER001 said:

If pull means push, yes. Thats how I discovered, when I looked at display set to freq and to my horror saw 463.275 . Also confirmed with a dummy load and nearby reciever it was indeed transmitting. (if by "pull" you mean download from radio, I just did that and all 8 repeater pairs are now set to .5 mhz offset!!...and yes they transmit in the 463 band. Baofoddity got some 'splaining to do!)

Yeah. I never trust what the menus say on a Baofeng, esp in channel mode.

Ugh, I just realized that by fixing the offset with Baofeng software, it inserts the NOAA channels back in.  And Baofeng Software truncates chanel names to 6 characters. Bah

If these radio didn't have upgradable firmware they'd all be  getting returned. ( I got 6.) Maybe they will anyway...

I meant pull as you mention pulling from radio. Crazy that you managed to get the offset adjusted to 0.5. Does your display show "+-" on the repeater channels? Does on mine which seems like an error.

Also disappointed I can't transmit in VFO regardless of freq.

[Baofeng UV-5X GMRS]

1 hour ago, SEIGLER001 said:

I just programmed a .5 offset by mistake with chirp and it took it! Verified it is transmitting in the 463 MHz band. ...ulp. Could not fix with chirp but uploading from the Baofeng software fixed. Alerted Baofeng and Radioddity and Chirp. Hope next version of firmware makes GMRS TX beyond ch 30 possible! I need that...don't need 463 MHz!
 

Did the old firmware allow GMRS TX beyond ch 30?

Did you pull to confirm the offset had programmed that way? Chirp for some reason occasionally glitches all my repeater offsets to + 0.5MHz. Other weird thing, the handset lists offset of 0MHz and no change can be made manually.

I was able to confirm that TX/RX tones function as desired for repeater transmissions, which again, can only be programmed into channel 23-30 for TX.

Really hoping if they release another firmware, they set limits on just the TX freq, and not lock channels to TX freq.

[Baofeng UV-5X GMRS]

Just picked up a pair of these UV-5X (UV-5G) units from Radioddity and am running into a new issue with the revised firmware. Writing new freqs doesn't work correctly.

Example:
With CHIRP I can write all the repeater channels I want into the config file, great. Flash it, re-read. Every single channel above 30 has duplex set to OFF. So all I can do is transmit on 30 channels, the rest are just listen. So much for programming more repeaters.

Example2:
FREQ for channel 23-30 is static, you can't change it either on the device or in CHIRP. So I can only have 1 repeater per channel assigned at any one point in time.

Does anybody know how to resolve either of these issues?