• To anyone looking to acquire commercial radio programming software:

    Please do not make requests for copies of radio programming software which is sold (or was sold) by the manufacturer for any monetary value. All requests will be deleted and a forum infraction issued. Making a request such as this is attempting to engage in software piracy and this forum cannot be involved or associated with this activity. The same goes for any private transaction via Private Message. Even if you attempt to engage in this activity in PM's we will still enforce the forum rules. Your PM's are not private and the administration has the right to read them if there's a hint to criminal activity.

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    To obtain Motorola software see the Sticky in the Motorola forum.

    The various other vendors often permit their dealers to sell the software online (i.e., Kenwood). Please use Google or some other search engine to find a dealer that sells the software. Typically each series or individual radio requires its own software package. Often the Kenwood software is less than $100 so don't be a cheapskate; just purchase it.

    For M/A Com/Harris/GE, etc: there are two software packages that program all current and past radios. One package is for conventional programming and the other for trunked programming. The trunked package is in upwards of $2,500. The conventional package is more reasonable though is still several hundred dollars. The benefit is you do not need multiple versions for each radio (unlike Motorola).

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Kenwood tk7180

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rcfd34

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Dec 1, 2011
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Just got my hands on another tk7180 for a price i couldnt say no to but my question is im new to the whole radio world and wanna program this radio myself fpund found software and what not on ebay but before i buy it i wanna no how hard or easy these radios are to program thanks
 

mmckenna

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Jul 27, 2005
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Not impossible. Kenwoods are pretty easy to program, and the actual programming software is easy to use.

A couple of things you need to be aware of, though:
Radio firmware needs to be compatible with the programming software. Old programming software and a new firmware in the radio will not necessarily work together.

Software off e-bay can be a crap shoot. Buyer beware.

Software requires a code to activate. Make sure you get that with the disk.

You'll need the correct programming cable. Some aftermarket cables work fine, some are crap. Do lots of research. Kawamall seems to be pretty respected.

If you are going to use it as a receiver only, make sure you program the channels for RX only. It's easy to do with these radios and prevents accidents.

The "help" in the newer Kenwood software is pretty good.
 

KC5NOI

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Apr 15, 2009
Messages
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Location
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
I agree with mmckenna, Kawamall sells a great cable for the 7180 for cheap. I bought one from them for my 7180 and it works great on both Windows XP and 7. It's nice having FD, EOC and Ham all in the same radio! Glad you found another one.
 
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Nov 7, 2005
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Location
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I used to have a Kenwood TK-7180 (also a TK-2180 portable) and absolutely love them!!! Kenwood's in general are easy to program. As said before, newer software versions don't like to work with older firmware. But in some cases, they work just fine together. The TK-x180 series radios are great not only because of the abundance of features that can be programmed into the radio, but they will do either MDC-1200 or FleetSync features as well (but only one or the other, you can't program them to do both at the same time unfortunately).

As far as cables go, Kawamall on eBay is a very good source for the cable. I have purchased several from them, and even directed them towards improvements for the KPG-36 cables to be compatible with all the radios that they program (I got a free one out of that. It was a pin-out problem.. LOL)

Software..... Do beware of where you get it. Some will scam you. There are Kenwood groups on Yahoo that can help you with the more specialized programming questions. I am a member of several, and there are some very resourceful people in those groups.

Please feel free to email me (as I don't get on here enough to answer PM's) if you have any questions about it. As I said, they are awesome radios that are packed full of features!!!!
 

LostSignal

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Aug 7, 2013
Messages
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SoCal
accessory pinout

hi all, does anyone have the accessory pinout for this radio? I need this information to interface to the DB25 accessory pinout on the back of the radio. It would be very much appreciated.

BTW, I'm glad I found out about the programming software and firmware versions. Thanks for the tip guys.

-LostSignal
 
Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Messages
137
Location
Muhlenberg County, KY
hi all, does anyone have the accessory pinout for this radio? I need this information to interface to the DB25 accessory pinout on the back of the radio. It would be very much appreciated.

BTW, I'm glad I found out about the programming software and firmware versions. Thanks for the tip guys.

-LostSignal

Just sent you a PM.
 
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