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Reviews For: CHIRP

Category: Ham Software/Apps - Other than logging

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Review Summary For : CHIRP
Reviews: 51MSRP: free
Description:
CHIRP is a FREE, open-source, cross-platform, radio programming tool. It works on Windows and Linux (and MacOSX with a little work). It supports a growing list of radios across several manufacturers and allows transferring of memory contents between them.
Product is in production
More Info: http://chirp.danplanet.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00513.8
GRUMPY2021 Rating: 2021-05-21
It's free. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
3.8 for a free product. It's free. What more can you really ask. It's free and it works. Not much more needs to be said. It's free.
K5MO Rating: 2021-05-20
Works fine, high value. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've used CHIRP on several radios over the years. Some (like my early Yaesu micro portable) took some fancy sequencing to get to work. Others, like the QYT 9600D I did last week, worked right out of the chute with no drama.

If you can play the Youtube videos that are associated with the radio you're trying to program, you know enough about computers to get Chirp to work.

Chirp is God's answer to Chinese manuals.
KO4NDS Rating: 2021-05-19
Works as advertised Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Being a Linux user I have a lot of experience with GNU software and and shareware. I get a few laughs reading the negative reviews for CHIRP, because it is very clear that in many cases, the reviewers did not go to the CHIRP website and read up on what the software claims to do.

I have used CHIRP on several radios now, and I find that it does exactly what it claims to do - no more and no less. I find it a great utility for programming the radios it supports.

I run CHIRP on Ubuntu on a old HP Pavilion laptop. It has worked flawlessly for me on the CCRs and Yaesu transceivers I have used it on, and I am soon going to be trying it with an Icom transceiver. Once you understand CHIRP's limitations (which are documented by the developers) you should bring your expectations in line, and you will not be disappointed. It is not a end-all, be-all software for programming radios, but then, it does not claim to be. However, it is a flexible and easy to operate utility that does what it does well.
K9DEG Rating: 2021-05-19
Better than expected Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Great for the price, thanks to all the developers. Used it for programming the "feng" and even allowed me to add names for my repeaters. Also used it to program a older Kenwood dual band ht TH-G71A which is done "live" or "active", i.e. just to copy and paste in from an excel spreadsheet. Then I bought a TH-F6A that included a copy of the RT Systems software. I liked that so much that when I recently purchased a new IC-2730A mobile I bought the RT software right away.
KD2HCU Rating: 2021-05-19
Works pretty well Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've used CHIRP to program quite a few HTs, it has its quirks. Sometimes I had to hold the cable to the radio to make contact or look for the right comm port. In the end it always worked on radios it was supported. I have the real chips in my cables, not some prolific copies. I wish it would work on my 2 Yaesu's, could have saved a few bucks I spent on RT systems. If I had to pay for CHIRP I would have lowered my rating.
VE3LNY Rating: 2021-05-18
Great for many radios Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have been using Chirp for some time now to program two radios.

Icom IC-T7A - the Icom programming software won't run on any modern computer anymore (and hasn't for a long time). Chirp helps me keep this radio going (as an IC-T7H).

Btech UV-25X2 - great support for this radio. And the Miklor web site shows how to make your own programming cable. I had one up and running in a couple of hours.

I greatly appreciate the efforts of Dan and all the developers.
KV4BL Rating: 2021-05-17
Worthless Time Owned: more than 12 months.
To me at least, CHIRP is worth exactly what you pay for it, NOTHING. Across at least three computers and multiple radios supposedly serviced by it, I have yet to gain one iota of benefit. I am well aware that some extremely computer immersed hams have made it work. Bully for you! As K9ZIBbelow correctly noted, it is a waste of time and aggravation.

What I really hate, is how so many YouTubers and other reviewers of ham radios make out like if the radio is covered by CHIRP, you are set on programming it. Not necessarily so.
WB0KWJ Rating: 2020-11-23
Useful for some, not so much for others Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've been using Chirp to program various radios for several years. Perfectly in some cases, less so in others.

Having done this kind of work, I fully understand the issue involved in figuring out obscure data protocols and programming quirks, and appreciate the huge effort behind the product. I am also not insensitive to the fact that Chirp is used on thousands of combinations of computers and operating systems, through serial and USB drivers of varying levels of functionality.

However, this does not change the fact that Chirp is a sometimes unreliable product, with relatively poor communication with users about known issues--including bugs that can things such as erase the radio's memories despite correct setup and implementation. That is, just because your radio is in the menu does not mean you can use Chirp with it. Back up everything if possible.

If the program works for your radio, then great. But, Chirp is very definitely a use-at-your-own risk option.
G4VRR Rating: 2020-11-20
OK For Me. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I used CHIRP with a cheap Chinese lead and a UV5R and it worked first time. Another local ham then bought a slightly different UV5R with a chrome loudspeaker grille, so we installed CHIRP on his PC and tried using my own backup file. CHIRP complained that it was an incorrect firmware but my colleague said "do it anyway" and it worked fine. I don't recall doing the initial backup on either occasion (RTFM!) but maybe I/we did, it was several years ago now.

Then I got a KT8900r and couldn't wait for the new cheap Chinese lead to arrive, so following a great YouTube video I programmed it manually. When the lead arrived on a slow boat from China, I used it to check my manual KT8900r programming and it worked straight away. It identified one programming error which I corrected and I then made a backup. Later on, the KT8900r died on me- no RF or audio. I think it was caused by hot plugging a mono plug in the external loudspeaker stereo socket? Trying to resurrect it I discovered that the radio's firmware is not flash upgradeable, but even with an apparently dead radio, CHIRP was still able to read, back up and load the configuration file. I put these good experiences down to using good old Windows XP and Windows 7 with their somewhat more cavalier attitude to fake chips.

So here's the thing, there's a common theme to my tale- Chinese radios. If the exalted Big Three deploy obfuscated protocols and Windows takes a high moral attitude to the issue by over writing drivers that you have specifically chosen to install, then go blame Redmond and IKY but not the CHIRP guys. I suspect CHIRP exists partly as an indignant response to profligation by a certain high profile player with a horse in this race (and from what I've read it seems that not every user is happy with them too.) When the push comes to the shove, you can't complain about what you didn't pay for, and if it doesn't work (provided it hasn't bricked your rig) at least you haven't hemorrhaged fifty bucks to achieve what the big three should have given you in the package.

Based solely upon my limited (and thus unrepresentative?) experience I would recommend CHIRP, but guys do spend an evening researching potential gotchas on the internet, and (unlike your scribe) read the destructions first because I'm pretty sure I was just lucky. No five stars here, but for heaven's sake give the folks that put all the astronomical effort into CHIRP some thanks.

Bet you wished you hadn't launched that old XP lappy ...
KG4RUL Rating: 2020-11-20
Fantastic Collabarative Effort Time Owned: more than 12 months.
There have been bumps along the way but CHIRP has remained the most versatile and inclusive programming environment available. I have used it to keep seventeen different radio brands/models programmed to our ARES frequencies with great success. It has NEVER harmed any radio that I have programmed with it. And, it is free.

Despite the negative reviews posted by others, I still find CHIRP to be the best alternative to the often indecipherable software supplied for some radios.