Best "Bang for the Buck" Radio.(IMHO)

[WRUE951]

22 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

Code editors do not unwind an executable to structured source code like you can inspect in an open source project.

if you can get into it, you can..   thats the hard part.   There are lots of guys in the Linux family  that love doing that stuff.   In fact in the late 90's before AutoCad allowed 'Add-Ons' guys were tweaking its code do to a lot of stuff..  I used many of the tweaks they invented at work all the time..  In fact we used Bentley Cad for the most part and there was a guy in Atlanta in my industry that was changing the Bentley Cad code to add a whole host of nice tools our industry used.  The tools he was creating got very popular so he started a compnay called Focus 1 and started selling his version along with a licensed paid for copy of the Bentley software.  it was actually a  copy of Bentley with his code changes. .  Eventually, Bentley caught on to what he was doing and sued Focus 1.. The guy ended up forfeiting his version of code to Bentley  and since Bentley has been marketing those tools as Bentley Comms.  Our compnay had 8 seats from this guy with a huge investment in them..  We ended up going to AutoCad, when Bentley started to hardball us on purchasing their new versions without discounts...  I dont't think many left are using Bentley.  

[WRUE951]

13 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

And less than half the price.  

Found this.     

 

[WRYS709]

[This guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMR/s/atzCq4UpCL) claims he can’t program the DM-32 with an EE degree!

[TerriKennedy]

On 7/26/2025 at 11:19 PM, SteveShannon said:

Code editors do not unwind an executable to structured source code like you can inspect in an open source project.

Just as a side note, my Modified UV-17 Pro GPS CPS and the BF-F8HP Pro CPS were done by "decompiling" the UV-17PG factory CPS starting with 1.2.4d. Earlier ones were done by patching the executable. You don't get any of the comments that were in the original source code, but everything else is there, including variable names.

OTOH, trying to do that with a radio firmware file is a different kettle of eels. The CPU in the radio only has 128KB or 256KB of flash memory for its firmware. There's an external serial flash of 1MB or 2MB that stores things like the user configuration, fonts, voices, startup picture, calibration data, etc. - but the CPU can't run code from there - it can only access it as data.

The normal Baofeng CPU these days is an ARM Cortex-M4 class CPU in a custom chip with other components, from some some manufacturers you've likely not heard of like Gigadevice/Artery.

ARM cross-development toolchains / disassemblers are typically commercial products sold at inflated prices to large-volume purchasers of the CPUs.

Some people have made progress using Ghidra, but since some of the parts of the radio firmware are supplied to Baofeng as "binary blobs" from the chip manufacturers, it will be a (steep) uphill struggle to completely decompile the firmware. For one thing, with that tiny amount of space there's no way to include the symbol table, which is one of the things that made decompiling the CPS possible/useful.

[TerriKennedy]

On 7/24/2025 at 3:20 PM, WSAA635 said:

BaofengTech/BTech has really out done themselves with the BF-F8HP Pro IMHO. This radio has everything I've been looking for in an HT, it's easy to program with the BTech software and even lets you add a Custom Start-Up pic. I did a vid of a quick walk around showing some of the features and showing the really awesome programming software too. Anyway, enjoy the vid and thanks for watching. TN.Frank Out!

Thanks for the kind words! I monitor the various Facebook groups as well as forums like this to collect bug reports and requests for new features. Reproducibly bugs get fixed, enhancement requests get looked at and if they would provide a feature useful to many users, they'll show up in a firmware update as well. Things like the "wink" of the LED to let you know that the radio is still scanning after the screen blanks, the enhanced functions on the side keys, etc. are all from user requests. And you get official firmware updates (with the update tool built into the CPS, and in English!) and real support if anything goes wrong. And most of these enhancements are unique to BTECH and you won't see them on regular Baofeng models.

With most analog Baofeng radios, the firmware your radio shipped with is what you're stuck with, even if there is newer firmware available. Other than things like the UV-17 Pro GPS 1.07 disaster (where the factory's choice was to either release a firmware update or to accept getting the majority of the radios returned as defective) and the 5RH Pro which is still trying to get itself sorted out after 2 board revisions and something like 70 firmware revisions, what you get is what you get.

[WSAA635]

On 7/25/2025 at 7:17 PM, OffRoaderX said:

Just wait until you see the new DM32 ....

I watched your review of the DM32. Digital has always intrigued me but seems a bit complicated. I'm going to stick with analog for now but digital might be in my future.