CHIRP

Ok, I bought my BF-F8+ years ago, and always had an issue with connecting. I bought a 2nd programming cable, thinking that might be the issue. It wasn't, I still couldn't connect to CHIRP. I tossed it in a drawer and forgot about it for a couple of years.

I saw a YouTube video yesterday so decided to try and give it a try with my new laptop. Initially, I had the same issue. Downloaded CHIRP, try to connect and received an error issue. When I plugged the programming cable in initially, my laptop detected it and installed on COM4. I tried using BF-F8HP initially, and it didn't work. I read a few of the posts, and realized I need to use UV-5R. When I switched to this, the comport switched to COM5 automatically, with COM4 option disappearing. I still continued to get the same error message, "cloning in progress" pops up for a few secs, then "an error has occurred, Radio did not respond".

I tried to uninstall, but there doesn't appear to be an option to uninstall CHIRP, so I decided to try and reinstall over the existing program. I tried again and had the same issue. I decided to try one more time, and somehow it worked (COM5).

After reading some info, I wanted to program the unit to skip NOAA channel, which I see can only be done thru CHIRP. So I started it back up, connected the unit and programming cable, when I saw that it now lists COM4, but COM5 is not an option. I'm back in the loop of - "cloning in progress" pops up for a few secs, then "an error has occurred, Radio did not respond".

Please help!