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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
N1KDO Rating: 2011-11-07
impressed Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I did not want to spend hours programming a hundred channels into my FT-8900, nor did I want to buy the "official" software, as I have had "uneven" performance from the FT-40, FT-50 versions. So I was intrigued when I heard about Chirp.

I'm trying to use less proprietary software when I can, so the fact that this is free software (as in freedom) and that it runs on Linux as well as the proprietary OSes made me even more interested.

I bought a radio programming cable from KawaMall on Ebay and with a bit of trepidation, installed the software on my ThinkPad which runs Fedora Linux. I attached the cable to the rig, and was able to download the program from the radio. After an hour or two later of keying repeater data into the program, I was able to load 150 memory channels into the rig. An amazing time saver!

The biggest problem I faced was not reading the Yaesu documentation carefully enough about clone mode. If there is a deficiency in Chirp, it is that it does not have detailed line-by-line instructions on which buttons to press on the rig to make it send and receive data from the computer. If you've cloned or PC-programmed a Yaesu rig before, it may seem more obvious to you than it did to I. A few minutes digging through the radio manual and it became clear to me.

The list of rigs supported by this program will blow your mind. Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu, Alinco, Jetstream, Wouxun.

I did not try this on Windows, but the web pages say it works.