New Model #11638
openBaofeng BF-888s Pro support
0%
Description
I recently bought a Baofeng BF-888s Pro. I read that unlike the BF-888s, it has the frequency copy function. Chrip does not work with the "BF-888" driver (cannot download/upload). On the other hand, Chrip works very well with the "BF-V8A" driver on the BF-888s Pro radio.
But there is at least one option missing in the settings: the scan mode. On the original Baofeng software, there is "Scan Mod" which can take two values "Carrier" or "Time". With the time mode it stops as soon as it encounters a signal, while with the carrier mode it continues to scan.
I think that 2 modifications should be made to Chirp:
Add an entry "Baofeng BF-888s Pro" because a newcomer will not necessarily have the idea to try the "BF-V8A" driver for his BF-888s Pro. This can be done by copying the "BF-V8A" driver
Modify this copy of the "BF-V8A" driver to add the "Scan Mod" option
I send you 2 .img one with the CARRIER option and the other with the TIME option enabled (image coming from chrip, but modified with OEM software first).
Tell me if I can do anything else to help?
Thanks for making this great Chirp software!
Files
| Baofeng_BF-V8A_20241027_SCAN_MOD_TIME.img (1.16 KB) Baofeng_BF-V8A_20241027_SCAN_MOD_TIME.img | with option "Scan Mod" to time | ||
| Baofeng_BF-V8A_20241027_SCAN_MOD_CARRIER.img (1.16 KB) Baofeng_BF-V8A_20241027_SCAN_MOD_CARRIER.img | with option "Scan Mod" to carrier | ||
| Imagepipe_296.jpg (160 KB) Imagepipe_296.jpg | Model | ||
| Download Baofeng Radio Programming Software.png (26.3 KB) Download Baofeng Radio Programming Software.png | |||
| scan_add_comparaison.jpg (169 KB) scan_add_comparaison.jpg | Scan add freq in Chirp and 888s.exe | ||
| bf-888s_settings.png (76.7 KB) bf-888s_settings.png | BF-888s Pro setting in Chirp and 888s.exe | ||
| change-language.jpg (287 KB) change-language.jpg | |||
| radio.xml (4.83 KB) radio.xml |
Updated by Dan Smith about 1 month ago
First, we don't just copy drivers, but we have ways to support multiple models per driver of course.
Second, it appears to me that this radio differs substantially from the V8A because the bit that is flipped for scan mode in your images (thanks for those) is where other models store other things. Thus, it appears that multiple settings will be wrong for the 888S when using the V8A driver. Just adding the scan resume setting for this one is non-trivial.
@Jim Unroe you wrote this and have a lot of modularity in the driver here. Some of the drivers support this same scan resume mode, but the bit is in a different place. Any thoughts on why this is different? Seems like a lot of the radios supported by this driver have quite a bit of variation. I think that probably the only option here is to decode all the settings for this other radio, or hide almost all of them initially since it seems like none of them will actually be right.
Updated by Jim Unroe about 1 month ago
- File Download Baofeng Radio Programming Software.png Download Baofeng Radio Programming Software.png added
Dan Smith wrote in #note-1:
@Jim Unroe you wrote this and have a lot of modularity in the driver here. Some of the drivers support this same scan resume mode, but the bit is in a different place. Any thoughts on why this is different? Seems like a lot of the radios supported by this driver have quite a bit of variation. I think that probably the only option here is to decode all the settings for this other radio, or hide almost all of them initially since it seems like none of them will actually be right.
This is a good question. The majority of the radios that support the Scan Mode setting are Retevis models. None of the current Baofeng models supported by this driver support the Scan Mode setting.
I agree with decoding all of the settings for this radio should be done, but I have been unable to locate the factory software to be used for testing. The closest that I could find was from Baofeng Radio (a radio dealer located in the UK - https://www.baofengradio.co.uk/software/). Their description for the BF-888s programming software that they supply says "This software is used for BF-888S, BF-888S plus,BF-R5,BF-T99 Radio". The actual software that they provide is BF-480.zip which was the generic software that Baofeng recommended for the original BF-888s radio back in 2012. If this is the case, then there would not be support for a Scan Mode selection.
If @gnujsa gnujsa has the 'original' software for the BF-888s Pro, then perhaps he could supply screen captures of software's settings pages and images for each of the radio's settings to be decoded.
Updated by gnujsa gnujsa about 1 month ago
- File scan_add_comparaison.jpg scan_add_comparaison.jpg added
- File bf-888s_settings.png bf-888s_settings.png added
The original software provided by Baofeng, unfortunately does not work. (I tried on several computers, the archive appears corrupted). This software is in version 1.08
https://www.baofengradio.com/pages/download
I found a version 1.05 here
https://www.miklor.com/BF888/888-SW-BF888S.php
It is indicated to be for the Baofeng BF-888s (the software is called 888s.exe). Despite this, this version seems generic because it contains options and frequencies that the BF-888s does not have.
For the scan option, the options of the BF-V8A driver of Chirp work. To add a frequency in the list of frequencies to scan, you must put the column "Sauter" (which means jump in French) empty (by default it was "S", the frequency is skipped) [see screenshot 1]. The only scan option missing in Chrip with the BF-V8A driver, is the option that allows you to stop or not at the first scanned signal encountered.
In the second screenshot, I marked the settings that seem to match between Chirp and 888s.exe. They just seem to, I didn't test by enabling/disabling each setting in 888s.exe and observing the result in Chirp because this version of 888s.exe seems old/not well adapted (I had the "squelch" bug described in several places on the internet, the available frequencies, the FM radio broadcast option, the frequencies that are marked scramble when they are not, etc.) If someone could get version 1.08 from the baofeng site, unzip it, and make it available, I could test each option and see what it corresponds to in Chirp?
Updated by Adrian Abraham about 1 month ago
- File change-language.jpg change-language.jpg added
I just purchased a pair of radios from Amazon which I guess are the Pros? They don't say anything about "Pro," but the listing does say it's an "Updated" version with the frequency copy function. As per the OP, they don't work with the 888 driver but do work with the v8a driver.
https://baofeng.s3.amazonaws.com/Baofeng_BF-888S_CPS_NEW_20240301.zip as listed on https://www.baofengradio.com/pages/download is the correct link for the software - it's what I've been using to program my new radios. The thing is, it's not actually a zip file, it's a rar file containing the installer. Unfortunately, everything defaults to Chinese. The installer wasn't too bad - I just hit all the default buttons and got it installed. The software itself also comes up in Chinese, but since I'd messed with an older version (which didn't work!), I was able to find the menu option to switch to English (see attachment).
Updated by Adrian Abraham about 1 month ago
For what it's worth, I've attached the save file I get from the OEM software. It's just an XML file, not a proper radio image - I don't see any way to dump one.