Do You Have a UV-5R with N5R-20/BFB297 Firmware?

[KC9HI]

Again, what you're asking for is pointless and unnecessary.

If you (or your friend or whoever) have the radio, you don't need to look elsewhere to get a CHIRP image file, you can get it straight from the radio whenever you want via the download function in CHIRP.

If the radio is too non-functional to download an image from, you're not going to be able to upload an image from another radio to it, regardless of firmware version. So having an image from another radio, regardless of firmware version, isn't going to be helpful.

If the problem cannot be resolved by downloading an image from the radio, than it cannot be resolved by an image from another radio.

Sure an image can be saved from the mis-behaving radios. But without an image from a known good radio to compare it to, there is no way to determine what changed or to know how to proceed to resolve the issue.

Yesterday morning I had received an email from Phil, WA4DDE, with the requested N5R-20 CHIRP image that he had saved from a working radio. This image has been forwarded to several individuals and has successfully "recovered" their radios.

These new radios with N5R-20 firmware have a 16-byte area of memory that has different values from a legacy UV-5R (and variant) radio. The radio will misbehave if these bytes are change. It was this memory being overwritten by an image from a legacy UV-5R (with different values) that caused the radio to stop receiving normally.

However, comparing the images and some testing by Bryan, I learned enough to isolate this area of memory. This allowed me to successfully hand edit a "bad" image to "repair" it.

Once I get a factory image (I have promises from multiple sources), I will make it available with the rest of my "factory" and "reset" images.

Index of /uv5r/programming/CHIRPrecovery

Jim KC9HI

 

[nd5y]

Jim, what radio model has N5R-20? Do radios with that firmware also show BFB297 when doing a 3+power on?

 

[KC9HI]

Jim, what radio model has N5R-20? Do radios with that firmware also show BFB297 when doing a 3+power on?

I believe it is various models. UV-5R and BF-F8+ so far.

Yes. BFB297 is reported. So I'm not sure if this unusual firmware version is just another verson scheme from Baofeng (like when they recently changed from BFB to BFS with BFS311/BFB297 and then BFS313/BFS297) or if it was created for a specific Baofeng dealer or group of dealers.

I also don't know if the group of 16-bytes that mess up the radio when they are changes are to control undiscovered features or they are just there for identification of some sort.

Jim KC9HI

 

[jonwienke]

Sure an image can be saved from the mis-behaving radios. But without an image from a known good radio to compare it to, there is no way to determine what changed or to know how to proceed to resolve the issue.

Is there a firmware version-specific template CHIRP uses to determine the memory location(s) to save various settings that is broken when settings are uploaded to a radio with a different firmware version than expected? Are there settings that are stored in location X in one firmware version and stored in location Y in another?

Or is CHIRP doing a mass write to the entire radio memory, regardless of whether there is a documented fonction for a particular memory location or not? If so, is this required by the radio, or is it possible to limit writes to memory locations with known functions?

 

[KC9HI]

[SOLVED] Do You Have a UV-5R with N5R-20/BFB297 Firmware?

I am looking for someone that has a working UV-5R (or variant) that has the following firmware version.

From the CHIRP Settings->Other Settings menu:
Firmware Message 1: N5R-20
Firmware Message 2: BFB297

If you have one of these radios or know of someone that has one, I need a CHIRP .img file from that radio emailed to me.

uv5r [at] kc9hi [dot] net

Thanks in advance.

Jim KC9HI

I received the needed (nearly factory) CHIRP .img file yesterday morning from Phil. I forwarded it to two owners of radios experiencing the "no receive issue". They both have reported back to me that using this image file to recover from this issue was successful. I have been promised unmodified "factory" original .img files from others that have ordered radios but haven't received them yet. I am looking forward to receiving these .img files. I wish to thank all of you in advance.

In the mean time, anyone needing Paul's CHIRP image can download the copy I have from here.

Jim KC9HI

 

[joeuser]

Thanks Jim, glad you got this squared away

 

[SoloDiver]

I have a radio with the same problem, but when I tried loading in the img file, I get a message "Image not supported by radio:"

Is there a manual way to make the change?

Using chirpdaily 20140812

Firmware N5R-20 BFB297

 

[KC9HI]

I have a radio with the same problem, but when I tried loading in the img file, I get a message "Image not supported by radio:"

Is there a manual way to make the change?

Using chirpdaily 20140812

Firmware N5R-20 BFB297

Were you using an older CHIRP version when this happened? If so, downgrade a version prior to 20140716, to upload the file, and then upgrade back to the latest.

Jim KC9HI

 

[SoloDiver]

Thanks! That was the ticket.

I used the older CHIRP to send the factory image to the radio, then used the new CHIRP to program it.

All is well!

 

[SoloDiver]

Since I have 2 different firmware versions now, I have to program for one radio, then export the info and import it again for the other one. Even the latest CHIRP can't program both firmware versions from the same image.

A pain, but I can work with it now I know the issue!

 

[KC9HI]

Since I have 2 different firmware versions now, I have to program for one radio, then export the info and import it again for the other one. Even the latest CHIRP can't program both firmware versions from the same image.

A pain, but I can work with it now I know the issue!

You can also load the .img file from each radio into CHIRP at the same time. This will result in 2 tabs being open. You can then make row selections (click, control-click, click/shift-click, etc) so that you can copy and paste the selected rows between the tabs.

Another thing that I do is to compare the settings of each tab by setting each tab to the same settings menu. This allows me to quickly toggle between tabs to easily see which settings are different.

Jim KC9HI

 

[KJ6NA]

N5r-20 bfb297 only !!

I had the same problem. Reflashing the stock image is not enough. You must use the exact single compatible version of CHIRP to upload the stock image or it will fail.

I owned another UV5RE with the famous loud volume problem. Killed it trying to fix it, but it worked flawlessly with whatever version of Chirp I had and whatever firmware was on it.

Here's your exact solution for the exact combination of N5R-20 BFB297:
UV5R F8HP Recovery Baofeng Pofung UV5R

Had I remembered from my first UV5RE experience, I would have made a stock image backup before doing anything else. So I used the N5R-20 (factory)img. Everything was hunky dory after that. My scan and receive squelch started working again. I then downloaded an image from the radio, deleted it's contents in CHIRP and then IMPORTED my compatible csv file with 126 frequencies (what pain to make that!) and leave the 0 row blank ! Everything finally works ! And it's actually pretty dang nice ! Receiver on 2m seems to be more sensitive than my cumbersome Yaesu VX-7r.

Really Baofeng, if you're reading this, you really ought to cooperate with the ham community to develop your firmware. You'll likely wind up with a 10x better product and far more reliability and consistency. Free engineering for you and your sales will increase even more; better product for us. Please make the firmware upgradable when you can !!!