CHIRP

This was proof of concept to validate downloading and uploading. I don't have access to a KT-7900D or KT-8900D. I don't have a manual for either radio and currently know nothing about them radio (band limits, power levels, etc). So did absolutely nothing to support the settings of these radios. That is why I said to test downloading and uploading and "do nothing else".

Yes. The img file from a successful download will be very useful.

Jim

Marco,

Was this image from a KT-7900D quad band? Which radio do you have (or do you have both)?

Jim KC9HI

Thanks for the manual. That will be useful as well.

Jim

Anything I can do to help here? I just purchased one of these KT-7900D and it is a nifty little radio.

I too have the 8900d and would rather use Chirp to program it.
Any thoughts on if/when it may be available?
Anything I can do to help?
Thanks!
James

Jim Unroe wrote:

Thanks for the manual. That will be useful as well.

Jim

Hi Jim, by my guest.

I'm enrolled now on the Kenwood TK-280... the more deep I go, the more similar to the TK-27xG/76xG it's...

I will put a developer driver now to get a Chirp image for comparison.

Cheers, happy hacking, Pavel CO7WT.

Testing now. Had to edit the file slightly(There's a stray double quote on line 1801), but after that it reads the channels I have programmed into it. I'll program a few more into it with CHIRP and see how it goes.

Okay, I should have read more of the documentation before playing with this... It does appear to be working correctly. I've added four channels with CHIRP, and they read into the official software as expected.

Hello, I'm new to all this. I've used Chirp for lots of radios but they have always been supported already... Those .py .dat etc files, how do you use them? Am I reading this correct that people are getting it to work with the 8900D as long as you do something which I seem to be missing... I hate the factory software and am looking forward to chirp on this model... If this is obviously over my head I guess I'll just wait till the bugs are worked out and a chrip update is ready..

Kevin

Sorry to jump in I have a Mini KT 8900D and would like to try this out but I am windows only.

Hi, i got one and would like to test drivers you made (thanks guys for working on), i run windows and try the load module, but it doesn't work,
I've seen this page for developers : http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/DevelopersAdd_a_Radio but i want only test,

is there some page showing how to load test drivers in windows ? or only in linux ?
73's and thank you

All you need is a working installation of a recent CHIRP daily build. It does not matter what OS is installed on your computer. How to use this driver module was covered in Note #3. Here is the procedure in more detail.

To download the driver module:
Click the driver module link (right-clicking the link and choosing "Save Link As..." will not work)
Once the next page appears, click the "download" link
Save the file anywhere convenient (I recommend saving to the folder where you keep your CHIRP Radio Images (*.img) files)

To load the driver module:
Click "Help" in the menu bar
Enable "Enable Developer Functions"
Click "File in the menu bar
Click the "Load Module" developer function
Locate and load the driver module that was saved earlier

Now you will be able to test programming your QYT KT7900D and/or KT8900D with CHIRP

Note: Loading the special driver module does not change your CHIRP installation in any way. After you close CHIRP, you will have to load the drive module again before you can test programming the new radios or load saved image files.

Linux and windows 10 when I load module and select any of the test.py files I get an error which says Unable to load module : invalid syntax (the file name, line1)

I was able to get my radio programmed with test4. Compared to the stock program chirp took about twice as long to download/upload to the radio.

Kevin Buchholz wrote:

Linux and windows 10 when I load module and select any of the test.py files I get an error which says Unable to load module : invalid syntax (the file name, line1)

Because you downloaded the web page instead of the driver module file. Go back and read "To download the driver module:" in Note #23.

Jim

Jim Unroe wrote:

Kevin Buchholz wrote:

Linux and windows 10 when I load module and select any of the test.py files I get an error which says Unable to load module : invalid syntax (the file name, line1)

Because you downloaded the web page instead of the driver module file. Go back and read "To download the driver module:" in Note #23.

Jim

Opps, my bad. Yep that got it. Read and wrote fine just really slow.

Would one of you QYT owners attach 2 images with only the "Ring_Time" different so I can locate that setting in memory? You will have to use the QYT software to do this. Upload to the radio and download to chirp. Save to image. Change the "Ring_Time" setting and repeat.

Thanks,
Jim

Thanks Scott. Now I have a question. What is menu 25 in the KT7900D and KT8900D radios?

Thanks for tip (dont make save as but clic, then clic on download .py) works fine now for me (usefull to put in an FAQ ...)
I've got one and try some test :
Menu 25 is said SIG-BP, and looks located at 0E19
FM receiver frequencies looks to be at 0FF0-1-2-3-4
Thanks for job, ask if you need tests

Jim: I wanted to leave a note on this case to let you know I loaded 'btech_kt8900d_test5.py' into Chirp and had immediate success importing my channel program into my new KT-8900D. One issue worth noting is that it takes an incredibly long time to update the radio. The same is true for my KT-8900 (slightly older cheapo Chinese radio, a little smaller and lacking the 'D' model's OLED display), so I'm guessing it has something to do with the radio or the bootleg PL2303 USB serial cable I'm using, as opposed to an issue with CHIRP itself. In any case, I'll continue testing updates as you make them available. Many, many thanks for all your hard work!

Joshua : time for me is about 40s reading, 1'20" writing
Jim : about TMR (menu 0, settings Transceiver Multi Receive) configuring A+B+C+D in chirp results in none on transceiver, changing to ABCD on radio result in changing 0E00 from 0F (not OK) to 0E (works fine for ABCD Monitoring)

Bugs found in the Transceiver firmware (don't hesitate to confirm/deny/add others):
-switching from memory to VFO mode (push V/M) doesn't work (or very badly)
-TMR (multi standby) work bad in VFO mode (displaying signal receive but no sound)
-reverse function (* on micro) doesn't work
-transmitting on ham UHF relay with call tone generate after release PTT a small wait time (1/2 sec) then another transmit (without pushing anything) then receive (makes problem on each "line" ABCD), looks to hapen when we release PTT before Call(or simultaneously), the best way seems to release call, then release PTT

TMR programs fine here with the radios that I am working with. Unfortunately I do not have a KT7900D or KT8900D. This is why I ask questions and request feedback regarding the QYT radios.

I believe this may be a bug in your radio. There should be 16 settings for TMR corresponding to 00 through 0F in my radios. How many selections for TMR does your radio have?

In my radios, 0F is A+B+C+D and 0E is M+B+C+D. Only when the A line is selected as the main channel would the A+B+C+D and M+B+C+D selections function the same.

I noticed that the factory software also has a bug regarding the TMR setting. It is missing the M+A+C+D setting so it only has 15 choices. Could this be because the software matches the the radio which is missing one of the selections?

The full list of 16 valid TMR selections are:

OFF, M+A, M+B, M+C, M+D, M+A+B, M+A+C, M+A+D, M+B+C, M+B+D, M+C+D, M+A+B+C, M+A+B+D, M+A+C+D, M+B+C+D, A+B+C+D

Jim

Please refrain from posting bugs about the transceiver firmware here unless it directly affects the programming of the driver. It adds unnecessary noise.

Jim

Alastair,

What are you trying to point out with this picture? It looks good to me. Exactly matches my radios.

Jim

The factory software is incorrect. What does the radio have for TMR? Mine has the 16 settings that I stated above and CHIRP matches it exactly. If your radios do not have 16 settings, then TMR is not implemented correctly in them.

Jim

Sorry, thought you asked earlier in the thread for confirmation. Just delete the post and this one. Is there any further that you need?

What I want confirmation of is the number of selections for TMR in the KT7900D and KT8900D radios. That is what is important. It is already confirmed the factory software is "broken" in this regard.

I need to know if the QYT radios are short one selection or not (15 or 16). And if they are short on selection, which one is missing?

I believe I also asked what is menu 25 in the QYT radios?

Jim

Menu 25 is SIG-BP, both in the radio itself and also listed in the manual, signalling available prompt on/off.

Radio TMR. M+A+B+D is not on the radio menu.

Alastair,

Thanks for the feedback...

Thanks for confirming that menu 25 (SIG-BP) is the same as the radios that I have. Since I do not have the QYT color radios, I wanted to be certain because the QYT factory software incorrectly programs the "Roger Beep" (SIG-BP) memory location as "Ring_Time" (RING-T).

Thanks for the confirmation of the missing selection in the radio's menu 0 (TMR). It is odd that the radio is missing a different selection (M+A+B+D) than in the factory programming software (M+A+C+D). The error has been corrected in my radios. I wonder if it will be corrected in QYT radios? It would be nice if others can report if menu 0 (TMR) of their radio has only 15 selections or the correct 16 selections.

Another test that would be helpful would be to confirm if menu 25 (SIG-BP) works in the QYT radios. On all of the 3 radios that I have, ON is the same as OFF. In other words, the Roger Beep does not work (which to me is a good thing, LOL).

Jim

Here is the full, ordered list of 15 items in my TMR on my 8900D. And BTW, I'm 99% sure SIG-BP is NOT Roger Beep; it's ANI stuff. If someone sends a DTMF tone to you. I've never messed with 2/5 tone stuff so I'm not sure of the use cases.

Off
M+A
M+B
M+C
M+D
M+A+B
M+A+C
M+A+D
M+B+C
M+B+D
M+C+D
M+A+B+C
M+A+C+D
M+B+C+D
A+B+C+D

Sorry for the spam, I had not tried the test5 driver yet.. My radio is set to A+B+C+D but Chirp shows it as M+B+C+D. Just FYI, if this is the worst that's wrong it's not the end of the world. I found it odd the screen flickers the whole time it's downloading the image from it, it doesn't do that on the OEM software.

BTW, Alarm Mode, the "Alarm" setting does NOT TX, as far as I know, so just "Alarm Sound" makes sense for that one.

The other things, so far, look good! I have not tried to upload an image to the radio yet. Is that safe to do? At worst I could always reflash my image from the OEM software? If so I'll be happy to help test in any way I can.

Also, would someone with a KT7900D submit an image from it? A "factory" image or after a RESET would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Jim

Walter Francis wrote:

Sorry for the spam, I had not tried the test5 driver yet.. My radio is set to A+B+C+D but Chirp shows it as M+B+C+D. Just FYI, if this is the worst that's wrong it's not the end of the world. I found it odd the screen flickers the whole time it's downloading the image from it, it doesn't do that on the OEM software.

BTW, Alarm Mode, the "Alarm" setting does NOT TX, as far as I know, so just "Alarm Sound" makes sense for that one.

The other things, so far, look good! I have not tried to upload an image to the radio yet. Is that safe to do? At worst I could always reflash my image from the OEM software? If so I'll be happy to help test in any way I can.

Save your first successful CHIRP download from your radio, unedited, to a CHIRP Radio Images (*.img) file. You can then use that file later to return the radio back to that state should something unusual happen.

Jim Unroe wrote:

Save your first successful CHIRP download from your radio, unedited, to a CHIRP Radio Images (*.img) file. You can then use that file later to return the radio back to that state should something unusual happen.

Cool! I wasn't sure how stable saving would be. Good deal. I can always rewrite with the OEM software too, I typed everything into there over the past two days thinking this driver wasn't as complete as it was.

Are you looking for any feedback on other things, such as BCL missing in Frequency and Settings. There are other non-ham stuff missing too, which may or may not matter. Thank you so much BTW!!

Walter Francis wrote:

Are you looking for any feedback on other things, such as BCL missing in Frequency and Settings. There are other non-ham stuff missing too, which may or may not matter. Thank you so much BTW!!

BCL is not missing! Click a memory row to highlight it. Then click the [Properties] button. (an alternative to the previous 2 steps would be to right-click the memory row and choose "Properties" from the dialog box that appears) Finally in the "Memory Properties" editor window, choose the "Other" tab. You will find Busy channel lockout (BCL) along with Scramble, PTT ID, PTT ID signal code, Optional signaling and Speaker mute.

Jim

Jim Unroe wrote:

BCL is not missing! Click a memory row to highlight it. Then click the [Properties] button. (an alternative to the previous 2 steps would be to right-click the memory row and choose "Properties" from the dialog box that appears) Finally in the "Memory Properties" editor window, choose the "Other" tab. You will find Busy channel lockout (BCL) along with Scramble, PTT ID, PTT ID signal code, Optional signaling and Speaker mute.

Jim

DRAT! I missed the "Other" tab entirely. That explains that! Thank you :) I've downloaded, modified, and uploaded to my radio several times now, I've seen no problems, this is great stuff. I wish I'd tried it the last two days instead of using the OEM software.

Alastair Smith wrote:

KT-7900D factory reset Dat file from factory software and CHIRP Img.

I guess I wasn't clear. I want a CHIRP image from a KT7900D.

Jim

Thanks you very much Alastair. I have it now!

Jim

Would someone please submit a CHIRP Radio Images (*.img) file from a KT8900D that has been RESET (or otherwise sanitized to not have any personal information)?

Thanks,
Jim

remi f1mqj wrote:

Hi here is a KT-8900D image after reset all (menu 57 (all), menu, menu)
Hope this can help

BCL (Menu 15) tested : works OK in VFO Simplex without TMR (stay OFF in memory mode)
Loks like some Menu are NotAvailable on Memory mode ...
Updates on what i've previously called Bugs :
Not a bug : I badly understand VFO mode-totaly independant of Memory channel previously displayed (-switching from memory to VFO mode (push V/M) doesn't work (or very badly)
-TMR (multi standby) work bad in VFO mode (displaying signal receive but no sound)-> obviously TMR not realy made for VFO Mode
-reverse function (* on micro) doesn't work -> Reverse function can only work without TMR, after been said it's logic, but not obvious at first sight
-transmitting on ham UHF relay with call tone generate after release PTT a small wait time (1/2 sec) then another transmit (without pushing anything) then receive (makes problem on each "line" ABCD), looks to hapen when we release PTT before Call(or simultaneously), the best way seems to release call, then release PTT
New bug seen : Menu 43 TXDISP : either in Power or Mic-V show same (varying with sound -> looks like mic-V)
No CTSS or 2-5 tone here, not easy to test ...

Hi,
you found out all those bugs, but does your scan function works ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEXZnTMWSxs

I submitted a patch last evening. It is quite an extensive update so there is a chance that there may be questions asked or suggestions offered on how to make it better. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.

Jim KC9HI

Jim Unroe wrote:

I submitted a patch last evening. It is quite an extensive update so there is a chance that there may be questions asked or suggestions offered on how to make it better. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.

Jim KC9HI

AWESOME work Jim, thank you so much. I did a ton of adding, updating, removing, and arranging channels on my 8900D yesterday (my repeater list was years old, I had just been inputting the same list into each radio over the years basically) and I had zero problems. I haven't dived into settings deeply but typical channel organization went flawlessly.

Hi Marco, no scan problem at all, is there a release rev number somewhere ? i've a serial number starting like a manufacturing date : 161128
I've also found it can make cross band (VHF/UHF) repeater (offset 288...MHz)
I'm looking to see if it can do transponder (receiving on one band and transmitting on the other), probably not with only one antenna(yaesu FT470 did it) but REP-M Menu (51) talk about transpond (but seems only to be a Voice allowing output : if OFF or CAR, you get sound if on frequency,

remi f1mqj wrote:

Hi Marco, no scan problem at all, is there a release rev number somewhere ? i've a serial number starting like a manufacturing date : 161128
I've also found it can make cross band (VHF/UHF) repeater (offset 288...MHz)
I'm looking to see if it can do transponder (receiving on one band and transmitting on the other), probably not with only one antenna(yaesu FT470 did it) but REP-M Menu (51) talk about transpond (but seems only to be a Voice allowing output : if OFF or CAR, you get sound if on frequency,

My serial number is 1609182122 and the board is marked "XTJ_LY_RP_CP_4.2" "2016_08_31".
Mine have this problem and the cross band repeater function doesn't work. Obviusly the manufacturer doesn't answer to emails. And sent it back to china it'd cost half the radio price..
Soo happy.. :)

Jim Unroe wrote:

I submitted a patch last evening. It is quite an extensive update so there is a chance that there may be questions asked or suggestions offered on how to make it better. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.

Jim KC9HI

Hello,
i've been away from this thread.
Is it normal that setting page isn't available yet ? http://i.imgur.com/QWcJYzF.png
All test file are the same. Memory works great but i have nothing under setting.
This appends with all python test files. Using windows or linux is the same. (It works fine on UV4 QYT Software)
Thanks

Most likely a setting that is out-of-range. I won't know which one until you provide a debug.log file or the downloaded .img file.

Jim

EDIT -
I just fixed the problem writing the "QYT_KT8900D_20170220_after_Reset.img (16 kB) remi f1mqj, 02/20/2017 03:13 am" image.

Now it reads fine.. ;)

Today's CHIRP daily build should have QYT KT-8900D and KT-7900D support.

Jim

In using this i found no option to set wide or narrow band per frequency. Did i miss something? I had to use the oem software to do it.

The Mode column.
FM = Wide
NFM = Narrow

Section 6 of this "page":http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_CHIRP.php has links to at least 2 column guides for CHIRP.

Jim

1 - I've found on Miklor a new revew on Btech 25X2 / 25X4 which looks exactly like KT8900D/7900D and are included in last Chirp build (20170414), are firmware and data exchange the same ? so debugging could be mutual
http://www.miklor.com/COM/Review_25X24.php

2 - on the manual, menu 51 REP-M speaks about transponder,
what i understand as transponder is receiving BF on one band, and simultaneously transmit this BF on the other band (very usefull to repeat for example a relay received on high antenna shack in the neiborhood to listen it in the garden with a little pocket)
Does some of you made transponder mode working ? if yes, how ? because i tried without reaching success

Remi