R8600 R8600 Programmer Issue

[jpmn4ayv]

I recently purchased the R8600 receiver and liking it a lot. I use the RT Systems R8600 programmer to program the radio. My issue with the software is with the bank/group names. I have six memory banks(groups) programmed with many channels. In the bank/group names menu, I set up descriptive names for each group. When sending data to the radio, only group 0 has a name. The other groups are blank. If I program the group names from the radio's screen and upload the configuration to the R8600 programmer, I can see these names in the software. If I push the same uploaded configuration file back to the radio, the group names are wiped out except for group 0.

I'm running firmware 1.34 and the latest version of the R8600 programmer software. I spoke with RT systems about the issue, but no resolution from them as of yet.

Anyone have any ideas?

Much appreciated!
--Pat

 

[AOR-262]

My 8600 is Firmware 1.34 and I too have the latest version of RT Systems WSC-R8600 programming software.

I use RT regular and am not experiencing what you are. Can you record a video so I can see what you're doing?

 

[kruser]

I find RT Systems software to be bug ridden for the 8600 and R30 Icom's.
For the basics, it does work but it often default fields it does not understand. Sometimes it will read all fields correctly only to screw them up upon upload.
Mainly things like digital type and its info like NAC settings as one small example.
Also the settings available in the radio's menu are not all read or written correctly or at all.

In RT's credit, an email to them will often get things fixed but they are bad about not letting you know if something has been fixed. They also do not provide Release Notes when a new version is released. Either would go a long way in my confidence in using their software.

Early on, I also paid for Icom's official software and made it a habit to read my radios with that before making changes with RT's software. RT's software has simply burned me one too many times.
Icom's software is rock solid and covers everything plus it is very fast compared to RT software. You do pay quite a bit more for Icom software though but I feel it's worth it knowing my data will remain intact with the way I entered it. RT's seems to be a gamble.
RT's does have some features that are not offered by Icom software. The ability to bulk edit a group of entries is one that comes to mind. Icom's is all or none.
RT's can be more friendly for importing data from sites like RR although it is not perfect. Icom's software can do imports from CSV files which must be edited in an external program first.

So each has it's plus's and negatives but if you want accuracy and speed, Icom's software is the only viable solution in my opinion. I think several others here will agree with most of this as well for both the Icom R30 and R8600 models.

I only wish Icom's software was more reasonably priced or simply included with the radios like it was with the PCR1000 and 2500 series.

 

[jpmn4ayv]

Thank you both for replying so quickly. Much appreciated. I thought I'd try a couple of things first after reading your replies. AOR-262's comment about not having this issue led me down the path of a system configuration problem of some sort. I tried using the front USB, the back USB, and an assortment of other scenarios. The bottom line is that I managed to get the group names to push to the scanner. Here's what I did:

1. Uninstalled the RT Programmer software.
2. Performed a fresh install and activated the license.
3. Updated it.
4. Launched the program and opened the latest configuration file I had from the PC.
5. Since the program is a fresh install, it wants to get data from the radio first before sending any file to it. So I did created a new file and performed a "get data from radio" operation.
6. After getting the data from the radio, the bank/group names were all blank except group 0. This was expected.
7. I copied the bank/group names from the file in step 4 to the new file created from step 5.
8. I pushed this new file back to the radio. The bank/group names were populated!

I don't know if the installation was damaged somehow or something else was going on, but I'll mark this as fixed for the moment. I don't have any other programming to do with the radio at the moment, so I will leave it alone. Don't want to go looking for trouble.

If I run into any more oddities with the software, I'll post them back here. I may follow kruser's advice and buy the ICOM software too. Like most people have said, the RT systems programmer is buggy and slow as molasses. I, too, found them to be responsive if you report a bug and--yes--they aren't good with progress/feedback on reported issues, no release notes, and no notification that a new version is available. Its data import and editing features make those other issues tolerable.

 

[NYG]

I just bought an IC-R8600 and was looking for the most cost efficient programming software available. I was going to buy the RT software but now maybe not.

What to do now.......

 

[jpmn4ayv]

NYG,
It's still cost-efficient. The issue could have been with my system entirely.

 

[jpmn4ayv]

So it turns out it was an issue with my installation. Yesterday, I tried to update the scanner's memories after the uninstall/reinstall procedure I mentioned earlier. Everything worked fine and the scanner's bank names were still there. I like the software's import capabilities, so it's a keeper for me in spite of the quirks it has. But then, what software doesn't have quirks?