Quansheng Quansheng UV-K5 (8) and chirp

[DaveRKVRB]

As far as the "new" radios and their capabilities, I am a total newbie. Heck when I got my ham license, it was with an FCC rep sitting right there and no more code?? I feel jipped .... ._ l let that expire 12 years ago.
I saw the new style radios while watching an air show, fella had a Radtel.
I bought an RT-590 (UK-V5) and an RT-470 and their cable.
I d/l'ed the various versions of Radtel programming SW, CHIRP and RT Systems just for the 470 to compare to the free stuff.
For the most part they all work, with minor errors I overcome.
OK so on to my issue.
It seems once I setup a sw package for a particular radio (not the RTSys) I can't get the sw to allow me to change to a different radio and file format.
Ex: With the RT System sw (using Radio Reference) I build a file for the RT-470, load it on the 470, it works fine.
I then used another sw to d/l that file, save it and then upload it to the 590 using that same programmer.
The sw won't let me change the radio model, I tried restarting the program, moving the cable, using a different programmer program, restarted the Windows PC, no joy.
I spent hours searching the web and could not find a solution.
Help Thanks
Oh and I did go to a VE exam and test for a new ham license, I think I appreciated that more then with the Feds.

 

[JvdK]

This is a Quangsheng UV-K5 (8) thread. The reason for that is that on the UV-K5 (8) you can flash custom firmware. Beside some Baofeng K5 radio’s, other brands/types won’t let you flash firmware.

 

[DaveRKVRB]

This is a Quangsheng UV-K5 (8) thread. The reason for that is that on the UV-K5 (8) you can flash custom firmware. Beside some Baofeng K5 radio’s, other brands/types won’t let you flash firmware.

I'm not being snarky, the "Radtel" IS a UV-K5, am I missing something?
With upgraded FW.
BTW, I found the problem, I had unplug the USB cable from the PC between each radio swap.

 

[uptickguru]

The Quasheng supports two scanning lists and with some of the upgraded firmware you scan set a scan using the frequencies and set the radio to stop when a channel is hit or listen for a few seconds and continue. I am using the new Chirp-next I think it is called and it works with the UV-K5(8) right out of the box. I am also running the GitHub - egzumer/uv-k5-firmware-custom: A merge between https://github.com/OneOfEleven/uv-k5-firmware-custom and https://github.com/***ci/uv-k5-firmware-***ci-mod on 4 different devices and it works very well. A good write up on the changes and how to use the new firmware can be found on EGZUMER: Quansheng UV-K5(8)/UV-K6. This dude even has short videos on how to set up the firmware.

So I have my scan lists separated where I copy the old NOAA freqs on scan list one and I have all the Aircraft AM band freqs on scan list 2. In the chirp software there is an option to show extra columns. If you scroll to the right you will find the scan lists and for each channel you can assign to list 1, list 2 or all. I seperate mine that way.

However with the spectrum analyzer function you can stop on a hit scan and have it added to the list with the M key. I have not actually done it yet but there are instructions in the Blog for the firmware. I just ordered and additional to more UV-K5 (8) and I will try the above mentioned firmwares for scanning only.

I find these radios work very well for monitoring most channels I listen too. The AM bands can be noisy. But. I also limit my transmission to 2m and 70cm only but can listen to a bunch of other stations. I found that using a decent car antennae hooked in place of the stubby antenna makes a big difference.

Best of luck and check out the different firmwares for these radios as you will find one the fits your needs.