Well that is a bummer the existing issues had to be deleted. But glad to se the KG-UV8E and KG-UV8T listed together since they are essentially the same radio.

For others and to help build up some of the notes again. Here are links to the KG-UV8*T* manual and manufacture software as provided by Powerwerx. This is a slightly modified and relabeled version of the KG-UV8E.

KG-UV8T Manual: https://powerwerx.azureedge.net/productattachments/KGUV8T-UserManual.pdf
KG-UV8T Software: https://powerwerx.azureedge.net/productattachments/SetupKGUV8T.exe

Pavel,
Looking at the code in the dev driver, just to make it KG-UV8T friendly, I am guessing you could just add a class at the bottom of the file to register the KG-UV8T so that it shows Woxoun drop down list but uses the same code base as the KG-UV8E. Then everywhere that you have if (self.MODEL == "KG-UV8E"): for the 1.25 meter band you could probably change it to something like: if (self.MODEL == "KG-UV8E") or (self.MODEL == "KG-UV8T"):

I'm by no means a Python expert. PHP is more my thing. Let me know if you want me to test it.

Hi to all and Thanks to Aaron for the image and debug.log of a model "T"

The ident block after the initial handshake is at a glance the same (thanks to the debug.log), and the only reference to the KG-UV8T in the image is the second OEM string, but the radio model is the same for the KG-UV8E.

The KG-UV8T is essentially a clone of the KG-UV8E (or vice versa) I will support it by the "aliasing for radio clones" feature of Chirp.

Note to Aaron: The "aliasing for radio clones":https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Aliasing_for_radio_clones feature of Chirp was just created for that, a radio that is a clone of other with a different Manufacturer or just Model name, take a peek on the link to know more.

I was a Php guy until I knew/learn python, ;-)

Still waiting for the radio to validate all the features & settings.

73 Pavel CO7WT.

Pavel, Thanks...that works too. I was not aware of the aliasing feature of Chirp.

Pavel,
Another possible difference between the KG-UV8E and the KG-UV8T is I think Powerwerx when they updated the firmware, in addition to setting the default language to English, they also set the TX to be limited within the US ham bands. I don't know if the KG-UV8E has the same limit or not. If I try to transmit out of band (US ham) on the KG-UV8T it just beeps.

Specs from Powerwerx site:
VHF RX: 136-174 MHz TX: 144.000 - 147.995
220 RX: 220-260 MHz, TX: 222.000 – 224.995
UHF RX: 400-520 MHz TX: 420.000 - 449.995 MHz
This matches the label on the battery, but it just rounded up to the nearest MHz.

Pavel,
Downloaded the most recent dev driver and loaded it. Here are some observation:

• When I go to download from the radio I can select the KG-UV8T model form the list. When I go to upload the same file back to the radio, vendor and model are grayed out and the KG-UV8E is selected. Not that is it is that big of a deal to me, just wondering if it would confuse others. Not sure if this is the nature of Model Aliases or not.
• GOOD: I made a CSV file of 999 simplex freq. 333 in each band and they uploaded just fine. So it has not problem writing to all the memories.
• ISSUE: I did catch an issue with DTCS. That doesn't seem to transfer correctly. If I enter DTCS codes in Chirp they don't upload to the radio correctly and instead I get garbled values in the CTCSS settings on the radio like :67.7 (yes there is a colon in front). If I manually key a valid DTCS value into the radio, when I read from the radio that memory channel shows up in chirp blank, grayed out, with ERROR as the memory name.

Hope that is of some help. Let me know if you require more detail on any of these.

73 Aaron, N3MBH

Hi to all.

Aaron Crawford wrote:

Pavel,
Downloaded the most recent dev driver and loaded it. Here are some observation:

• When I go to download from the radio I can select the KG-UV8T model form the list. When I go to upload the same file back to the radio, vendor and model are grayed out and the KG-UV8E is selected. Not that is it is that big of a deal to me, just wondering if it would confuse others. Not sure if this is the nature of Model Aliases or not.

Yes, this is a side effect of the Aliases for clones. It's safe to ignore it, this behavior is described on the "aliases":https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Aliasing_for_radio_clones link.

• GOOD: I made a CSV file of 999 simplex freq. 333 in each band and they uploaded just fine. So it has not problem writing to all the memories.

Good to know.

• ISSUE: I did catch an issue with DTCS. That doesn't seem to transfer correctly. If I enter DTCS codes in Chirp they don't upload to the radio correctly and instead I get garbled values in the CTCSS settings on the radio like :67.7 (yes there is a colon in front). If I manually key a valid DTCS value into the radio, when I read from the radio that memory channel shows up in chirp blank, grayed out, with ERROR as the memory name.

Yes, there is some little differences in the handling of the data between the KG-UV8D Plus and this model, that's why I requested a radio at hand to do a issue per issue checking and if necessary fix to the new way.

I was playing with the OEM codeplugs (.kg files) to see If I can match it to the img of the radio but that was unsuccessful yet I noted some issues with the data in the settings (just like this one you spoted on the DTCS, the problem is not the place for the settings, is the encoding of the data...)

Hope that is of some help. Let me know if you require more detail on any of these.

73 Aaron, N3MBH

Yes, it was of help, you spoted a issue which I had no clue, it's on the to-fix list by now.

I have notified the original issue radio donor OM about the way to ship the donation radio to me to get full support, and I'm waiting for an answer.

73 Pavel CO7WT.

Pavel,
As it is now, most of what I need is there. At least I can get chirp to talk to the radio and read and write memory slots...even if I have to load the python driver in the meantime. I don't really use DTCS, but I am sure there are others that would need it. And it would be good practice to make it a fully functional driver. I noticed some of the settings missing also compared to the OEM software.

While I use the radio almost daily and don't have a spare, I am certainly willing to try and send you whatever you need. Logs or KG files from the OEM software. Anything I can do to help.

73 Aaron, N3MBH

Hi Aaron.

Update: postal shipping is a no-go from USA for the donor radio, so we are stuck. I'm contacting a known person in USA to see if he can bring me the radio in a future early February trip to Cuba.

You can help by providing another set of img and kg files for the same data in the meanwhile the radio travels to me, to try to check for differences.

From that image pair (by Chirp and OEM software) I will get in touch with you by email to work out the DTCS issue with some more test.

To create a image pair to this:

Start the OEM software and do a read of your radio, export the data in a file (.kg file), close OEM software¶

Start Chirp, load the module and read the data of the radio without changing anything, then save the image (.img file)¶

Now you have two radio images that correspond to the same data, post both to this issue or email them to me.

From that point I will try to make some test and figure out some issues with your help.

73 Pavel CO7WT.

Just a notice:

Still waiting for the delivery of the radio from a kind donor to validate and complete the driver.

The radio must be traveling now to Kentucky, then to Florida to jump to Cuba on early February carried by a friend.

If all goes well it will be in my hands by February 10 at most, so to the end of February we will have a full featured driver.

Cheers, Pavel CO7WT.

Aaron Crawford wrote:

Pavel, Requested 2 image files attached. Note that the only channels with DTCS are 126, 129, and 130. They come down into chrip with errors. Aaron

No joy with that.

The data is displaced and not match the data on the radio. I tried a few permutation and some other tricks but no joy, here is no direct inference from the data in one to the other... just some bits here and there, but then data is not a fully match as a whole.

Still waiting for the radio to complete the driver.

73 Pavel CO7WT.

Pavel,
No problem there. I appreciate all your effort so far as I am sure others do as well. It is most of the way there for my needs, so I just have it saved in a folder and load it up as needed. I will be happy to test any future updates on the KG-UV8T variant.

I would like to add that I just discovered that there was being work done on this radio and I want to say thank you to all that are making it happen!

Secondly, I have the KG-UV8E variant of the radio and in the little testing I did, I noticed the 'Settings' tab is blank. I also noticed that when deleting some frequencies and moving groups of frequencies around then writing back to the radio, I ended up with a bunch of duplicates and frequencies all out of order from the way they showed in chirp before I uploaded them to the radio.

I will be doing more testing around this to make sure it wasn't just some sort of glitch but for now, that is what I have found. I am so glad that I can finally use chirp to modify the frequencies on this gem of a radio. The factory software is horrible.

Thanks again to everyone involved.

Chris et all.

The support of this experimental driver is just that: experimental work being developed; so at this point you must not trust your life ;) to it; as it's just a prof of concept driver that supports just basic functions

I need to do more work (the hard part) to match the internal registers to the correct values and the settings, and then a full validation in the Chirp testbed. It's more a time-consuming task that a hard one, but I (developer) need a radio at hand to do that.

The process is stopped at this time as a donor radio (Thanks to Bob Wickline!) fly to me to complete the driver and get it on the mainstream Chirp version.

About that: we missed the "fly to me" delivery window for a day, the person that flown to Cuba carrying the radio don't get it on time, the radio was delivered to her house when she was flaying to Cuba.

But don't be worried, we have now two delivery options, one at end of this month or early March and another at mid March.

I will keep you posted.

73 Pavel CO7WT.

Pavel, Thank you for the update.

I was simply providing feedback based on my testing compared to what I have read through the previous comments. Such as the Settings tab. I look forward to following the progress for this radio. If there is any way I can help, please let me know.

Thank you,
Chris

Shipping news:

The radio is set to fly to my on April 21, so full support is near in time. Thanks to the donor and the kind lady that will bring the radio to me.

I will keep you posted.

73 Pavel CO7WT.

Sorry I haven't check back in within months. Thanks Pavel, keep me updated on how I can help test.

Aaron Crawford wrote:

Sorry I haven't check back in within months. Thanks Pavel, keep me updated on how I can help test.

Hi Aaron et all.

Sadly the lady that will bring the radio on April 21 (As per my last pots) faced some last-minute complication and can't travel right now, she was expecting some results to came and that didn't result ok.

We are stalled without the radio in my hands to make it full Chirp capable.

The kind lady has re-scheduled her trip to Cuba to June/July, nevertheless I'm looking for other options in the near term, as this has been take to long already.

I will keep you updated of any progress, 73, Pavel, CO7WT.

Thanks Pavel,

June is a nice time on the island. July gets hot but if she's coming with the radio, even July is excellent :-)

David N1EA

Hello Pavel,

I needed to change a setting on my KG-UV8E. I downloaded the most recent daily of CHIRP, and tried. Can't download from radio with USB03 selected. The bad news is that the Wouxun software also doesn't work. I tried CHIRP on Windows and CHIRP and Linux.

Do the Wouxun cables just one day fail?

Best wishes,

David N1EA

David,

I just got a KG-UV8E yesterday and I was disappointed to see that Chirp does not support it officially as well. Still, this morning I was able to make Chirp work for my radio. It is some effort, but it's probably worth it since programming all the channels by hand would probably be a lot more effort, so here is what you need to do.

• First, pretend you are a developer and follow all the instructions found on this web page to download the development environment. You need to think like a developer and download everything with matching versions of Python.
• Second, download the source code version of Chirp and change the kguv8dplus.py file with the one that Pavel provided above.
• Third, find the appropriate driver for the cable that came with the KG-UV8E, you can get a hint by looking in the device manager from the control panel if you are running Windows. For me it is a CP2102 USB to UART bridge, I found the driver using Google. Install the right driver for your cable.
• Fourth, run the Chirp software as a developer would do it, or convert it to an executable, again the instructions are on the same page as the rest of the developer instructions.

I hope that helps.

Christian
VA2ESK

The current version of CHIRP has support, a warning comes out saying it's experimental. It seems that Pavel's code has been integrated. Unfortunately, it seems my Wouxun cable has failed, or my radio has. I'm awaiting a friend's visit to sort the problem out. I've had no problem with Pavel's py file.

Hello,

For the long time followers of this thread/issue:

I finally got all aligned to bring the donated Radio to me, if all goes well about March 10 I will get it into my hands and will finish and fully support the KG-UV8E/T

Thanks to the Donor and every one to participated & sorry for the stupid import regulations of my country (I'm really mad at this)

Good news ahead!

73 Pavel CO7WT.

Flash news!

The Wuoxun KG-UV8E donated to finish de driver for Chirp is resting from it's long trip on a local custom office, I have cleared all the paperwork and I have to pick it up tomorrow morning!

So the official driver is on his way to completion, I will let you know when I have it in my hands.

Stay tuned!

Pavel,

Great! looking forward to checking out out soon!
Btw, a quick update. Wouxun emailed me their UV8E.exe Compander version 1.00 (150626. It did finally installed, and it is indeed multilingual. However, the software did not communicate with my radio. So I went back to the OEM UV8D Plus software for further configuration. Wouxun had not responded to my further inquiries of why the version and communication handshake issue. Not holding my breath or a real answer either.

Really am curious now how close the two models really is, and how many variants in between the two models are out there. So many questions....

bonus material
While somewhat off topic, but still "good to know". Have anyone else also notice the power level and SWR on the default whip antenna is just awful? I get around 3 watts output on 2m, but if I swap it out with the default rubber ducky that came with the Baofeng UV82HP, I get around 5 watts. NA771, I get up to 7 watts. NA320A, its a solid 5.5 Watts. I've also tested it with the default antenna which came the KSUN UV68D (MAX), and got also 5 watts out of output.
The KSUN UV68D (Max) is a Triband (Quad if you count 300mhz) band radio based off of the same OEM platform called WLT2000. Chirp will download using the KG-UV8D driver. However, once the memory sheet loads up, Chirp will immediately crash trying to parse data it doesnt understand. While it's pretty similar to Wouxun KG-UV8D* series, one of the coolest feature of this radio is the "Dark Mode", a popular feature in both modern operating systems, and general UI designs.

Lynda

Pavel Milanes wrote:

Lynda and everyone.

The fully functional driver for this radio is on my dev PC at home, I have completed all the mods and fixs it needs already but have lost the track of time with daiky work task, sorry, thanks to this post I remember that I must send it to the dev queue...

This weekend I will review it one more time before sending it. After that you can test it and file bugs or provide session debug logs to get your Chinese model supported.

Cheers, Pavel CO7WT.

Lynda Leung wrote:

I dont really have the proper set up for the developer end, but I would like to contribute since I just received a KG-UV8E that was purchased from China
This radio was purchased in China, and hand carried back to the states.

Naturally I have a bunch questions now, along with number of findings that might be different that what was already posted earlier.

Aside from the packaging and the manual being completely in Chinese (image attached), which it isnt an issue with me since I can read Chinese.
I notice out of the box, the radio label, manual, etc all indicate it is a Dual Band 2m/70cm radio. Nothing was mentioned to have any other bands. VFO mode cannot manually enter 220mhz frequencies. Is 1.25m normally locked out for this radio by default? Looking around the net, I've notice lots of inconsistencies with how it is packaged too.

The factory english software that I have downloaded off of various vendors but not from Wouxun themselves, will not talk to it at all.
However, the factory software for the English KG-UV8D Plus seems to works perfectly, as if it was made for it. On the other hand using Chirp's UV8D Plus driver, I can manipulate the memory slots, but the settings tab is completely empty. While using Chirp's KG-UV8D Plus driver, if I try to insert FRS frequencies, Chirp will pop an error telling me the radio is not capable of using 12.50kHz step. This is not an issue using the OEM KG-UV8D Plus software.

Factory software from Wouxun's website that is labeled in Chinese "KG-UV8E 中英文 setup.exe" (reads Chinese English Language) fails to install with the error: Launcher Error Unable to open archive file. Not sure of anyone else had ever tried using it.

Also to note: the OEM KG-UV8E Frequency Limiter (Expander) software also doesnt seem to communicate with it either.

Any chance there might be compiled version of the experimental code I can give it a try will do anything more? As right now it seems like the radio is more a KG-UV8D Plus in a KG-UV8E body with the way it's behaving out of the box.

Havent's seen an update with support for the KG-UV8E yet.
Issues with the driver?

Quick question.
Is it normal for the Settings tab empty?

I noticed it didnt have the DCS problem like the KG-UV8D Plus driver.
Btw, well done on the driver.

Lynda Leung wrote:

Quick question.
Is it normal for the Settings tab empty?

I noticed it didnt have the DCS problem like the KG-UV8D Plus driver.
Btw, well done on the driver.

Hi Lynda,

Nope, the empty settings tab is not a normal behavior, I got a round of reports via email, mail-list, twitter and now yours...

That issue is a sign of a out of bounds (or corrupted) setting, as I got many reports I vote for the "out of bounds/limits settings" option, but I need a image to inspect for the culprit setting.

Can you post your saved radio image here or email it to me at pavelmc at gmail dot com?

In fact if your are reading this (everyone not just Lynda) and you was hit by that bug you should follow above instructions, for me to be able to parse your img and fix, as it can be a few settings and not just one.

Hacking (or reverse engineer) driver is a try and error process, so this is a normal process with a new driver.

73 CO7WT Pavel.

Lynda Leung wrote:

If that's the case, then both the driver of KG-UV8D Plus and KG-UV8E seem to have the same issue.

I'm attaching both images just to be comprehensive. FYI, both radios were initially programmed by the OEM software before CHIRP did its initial read.

Lynda

Just as I said, this is not a bug:

• Your img file for the 8E has a TXstop setting (upper TX limit) on UHF of 52099750 Hz, beyond the 520000000 declared in the driver.
• Your img file for the 8D has a RXstar setting (start RX limit) on UHF of 350000000 Hz, way lower than the 400000000 declared in the driver.

That's 99% a setting the user tweaked, it can work but you are risking your hardware or even legal actions against you and maybe CHIRP, so my policy on freq limits is to set it like the EOM, on some occasions when limits benefit the ham community I bend the rule and allow expansion. But this is not the case, correct me if I'm wrong.

I will setup a trigger to put on OEM limits that out-of bounds settings on radio/file read, so users will see no more blank settings.

Cheers Pavel CO7WT.