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Wouxun KG-805G programming


Question

Posted

Greetings!  New to the forum.  I've had my GMRS license for about 9 months and I'm also an amateur radio operator.

 

I recently purchased a Wouxun KG-805G HT, which is Part 95 type accepted for GMRS. It comes pre-programmed with the GMRS channels, including the repeater channels. The repeater channels are identified by number and repeater designation ("RPT20", for example). This makes things a bit unwieldy, because you have to remember the channel number and its relationship to the repeater frequencies you wish to use and then you have to manually go in and set the CTCSS or DCS tones every time you use that channel for a different repeater.

Mostly out of curiosity, I checked CHIRP to see if I could identify other unprogrammed channels in the radio. My objective was to program specific repeaters and their tones and names in those unprogrammed channels, if they existed. I found that CHIRP does not identify the KG-805G as a radio which it can program; however, I also found that if you use the program for the Wouxun KG-816, it does, in fact, allow the uploading and downloading of data from and to the radio. Doing so revealed that the KG-805G has quite a few unprogrammed channels. I put in my favorite GMRS repeaters into the CHIRP programming matrix and then successfully uploaded them to the KG-805G. I also stopped scanning on the pre-programmed channels in the radio and allowed scanning on the channels I had programmed, so now I can scan my favorite repeaters.

This may already be known to other KG-805G users, but I thought I'd put it on here in case someone didn't know.

Incidentally, I really like the radio.

 

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Posted (edited)

Well well, I've got a KG-805G that's not receiving or transmitting anymore after a CHIRP slip-up. I've been playing around with CHIRP-next which is a huge improvement over the UI in my opinion. I tried to write a config to the radio with CHIRP-next and it didn't want to see the radio, so I downgraded to CHIRP-daily and tried to write the config that I had saved from CHIRP-next. After writing the config to the radio the radio started to behave strangely and revert to Chinese language and beep being on after every power cycle, and TX/RX weren't working anymore. So a word of caution with CHIRP-next.

Now, if someone would be so nice as to send me a KG-805G config for CHIRP from a working radio I would love to try to flash it and see whether it fixes my unit. 

I've tried flashing a working config using the trashy Wouxun software and the radio still won't TX/RX.

(There's a chance the TX/RX issue is from the radio getting wet which happened in parallel with the programming issues...)

 

update: I was sent a firmware which confirms that the radio can still RX/TX, still trying to sort out some details. More over here.. .

Moral of the story seems to be: Don't edit an image in CHIRP-next, save it, and then install it in CHIRP-daily.

 

Edited by WROS490
update
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Posted

Just got my 805g and used the 816g profile in CHIRP to program some channels and it works fine for that. What it doesn't do is let you see the Settings of the radio.  I tried some of the other profiles and found that the KG-818 and KG-UVD1P work as well. Still no Settings though.

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Posted

Because I'm not a maid, I don't do Windows, LOL.

Their software only work on that crappy Op System.  The CHIRP Legacy Flatpak easily installs on my MX 23.1 Linux System and works well enough to get the job done. 

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Posted

 

1 hour ago, WRXB215 said:

@WSAA635 I prefer *nix systems myself but I have to use Windoze for work. The plus side of using Windoze is that you can run pretty much any radio programming software on it. Just get a cheap, Win 10 laptop and you'll be set.

I'm sure if I wanted to take the time I could install WINE and Play on Linux and get it working or even go into VirtualBox and spin up a Win10 VM and do stuff from there but I'm just too lazy, LOL. I've been running a Linux Distro of one kind or another since Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I'm running a Debian spin called MX-Linux(23.1)with the KDE Desktop and I absolutely love it. I just upgraded from 19.1 so I could get the latest kernnel and features.  Long as I can program the channels into my radio I'm fine if I can get the settings from the radio set. Some radios aren't as user friendly and you really need CHIRP to get the the settings but with the KG-805G there's really not much to set so I'm good.

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Posted (edited)

(EDIT: PROCEED WITH CAUTION: In my original comment I failed to mention the following: Make certain you have saved a backup image of your radio before you try this!!! Luckily, I did beforehand or i would have an $80 brick. When editing inside CHIRP Legacy for the 805-G, you are using the software to perform a task outside if it's design. I found that when copying and pasting, along with trying to clean up some weird frequencies read from channels 129, 130, CHIRP will reset some firmware settings, (I think?), and make the radio reset to all Default settings each time the radio is powered off/on, including the voice/language settings. After downloading from radio, I think the frequencies i saw, in channels 129, 130, were the settings that tell the radio where the last available slot is located. I reloaded the original .img and all was ok, back to my settings before i uploaded anything to the radio. I found that if i slowly edit each frequency, NO COPYING AND PASTING OR DELETING WEIRD CHANNELS, the radio will accept the edits without resetting to default upon each power off/on. My advice is to go slowly, enter each frequency manually, or don't attempt this at all. I was lucky. I always try to keep an archive of my equipment before doing anything software related, and i am so glad I did!)

To anyone reading this as we come to a close of 2024 and enter into 2025, first off, where has the time gone??? Secondly, you need to use the Chirp-Legacy build to program the KG-805G. I tried programming via Chirp-NEXT a couple times over the last year and never could get it to work. Today, I downloaded the Chirp-Legacy build, to give it one last attempt, and was able to do all the things the other guys mentioned. Wonder why the developer didn't include the KG805G in the latest update?? Last thing, as others have mentioned, you should select KG-816 before attempting to "read from radio". This was the only option I tried and it worked as intended, so I didn't test any other models. There may be a plethora of other Wouxun models that will allow Chirp to read your radio, but try at your own risk. 
 

Thanks for taking the time to read my comment. I hope it helps a newbie like myself. 

-Dylan, WRZR901/ KQ4OTI


"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
-A.E.

 

Edited by WRZR901

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