Programming QRZ-1 & Baofeng UV-5R w/ CHIRP; Bay Area repeaters
We did a demo of CHIRP (open source ham radio programming software) but due a forgotten USB dongle at our practical skills training class yesterday (oops! we'll make sure to correct this when do the class again on 3/15), we weren't able to program student radios. We're writing this post for folks who asked us to upload our config but hopefully it's useful to a wider audience, too. It'll cover programming QRZ-1 and Baofeng UV-5R radios w/ CHIRP (see below for more info about radios and CHIRP). Other radios may require different steps. CHIRP may even prompt you for what those steps are, but they are not covered in this post.
Note: We've had great luck programming QRZ-1 and UV-5R radios using CHIRP, but this isn't a guarantee it will always work. CHIRP will give you some warnings as you go; it's up to you to decide whether to accept the possible risks of using the software to program your radio.
Programming your radio via a computer program is much easier than trying to do it through the radio's keypad. Not only do you have a access to a better screen/keyboard, but you can also download information from online resources (see below for some of those).
Here's the CSV file we created for our training that includes several Bay Area radio clubs' repeaters.
Open it up in CHIRP and you should see something like this:
Our file is based on a generic configuration; it doesn't have all the data necessary for any particular radio. Instead of using using it directly, we will be copying the data to a download of the configuration from your radio. To download the QRZ-1 or UV-5R radios, the process is basically the same:
Turn your radio on and make sure the volume is turned up to its highest level. set it to a frequency w/o traffic. Also unscrew your antenna just in case.
Next, connect the programming cable to your radio and to your computer by going to the Radio menu and selecting "Download from radio". This will give you a dialog box to specify what radio you're downloading. Here is a sample dialog of a QRZ-1. Just note that it's possible you may see something slightly different on your computer.
If you accept the warnings that Chirp gives you and decide to go forward, it will download the configuration of your radio. This includes not only the channel settings, but also all the different options that your radio can be configured with. We suggest saving the configuration for your radio and naming it something that reflects its current state. For example, you could name it "QRZ-1, fresh out of the box". After that, save this file as a name like "QRZ-1 with Bay Area channels".
You should now have two tabs open in CHIRP. One is the CSV that we provided and the other one is the configuration from your radio.
Go ahead and click back onto the tab for our channel list and select all the rows, just like you might in a spreadsheet. Copy and then go to the tab for your radio's config and then paste. You have the option of pasting over any info on your radio (i.e. you don't want to keep any of it) or you can paste in after channels you've previously configured.
One thing to note is that the QRZ-1 and the UV-5R both default to showing only the frequency of any given channel. Both radios have an upper and a lower display that you can switch between using a button labeled A/B. On the QRZ-1, there is a setting that applies to both of these. In other words, both displays either show the frequency, the channel number, or the channel name. The UV-5R has two settings, ne for the top display and one for the bottom display. So you could set one, the other, or both on the UV-5R. You can do this through the keypad, but since you're already in CHIRP, you may as well do it here. The channel list is in the "Memories" tab; the other settings are in the "Settings" tab. Click on that. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like for the QRZ-1:
And the UV-5R:
Once you've set these the way you like, you're ready to upload to your radio!
Go back to the radio menu and select "Upload to radio". You'll see a dialogue similar to the download one. As you click through you'll see warnings again. If you choose to proceed forward, it will send the new configuration to your radio.
And that's it! You can now unplug your radio from programming cable and screw your antenna back on. Your radio should now be ready to use!
A note on cheap radios, CHIRP, and our channel selection
Some hams will recommend folks start with more expensive radios, but we think starting with a QRZ-1 or the BaoFeng UV-5R is fine. They're a lot cheaper, which makes them more accessible, and you can always upgrade later. Plus, having a cheap radio means you'll be less afraid of experimentation. We love experimentation! But sometimes experimentation comes with risks. Having a cheaper radio means losing it or damaging it isn't quite as bad as if you spent 4x as much on a better radio.
Another thing to note is that while there are other ways to program radios, we like CHIRP because it's open source, which we love! It's produced by other hams and it's worked great for us, at least with the QRZ-1 and UV-5R. There are some radios that won't work as well wtih CHIRP, but we typically start with CHIRP (assuming the radio is on the compatibility list) becaus we want to support open source and community projects.
Finally, just a note about how we made our selection for the channels. The first two channels are simplex: the VHF national calling frequency and the UHF national calling frequency. And we chose those because those are basically the two that are supported by these two radios. The rest of the channels are all repeaters. Specifically repeaters run by ORCA (Oakland), ARCA (City of Alameda), SFARC (San Francisco), MDARC (Mt. Diablo), Bay-Net (South Bay/Penninsula/East Bay), MARS (Marin County), SCRA (Sonoma County). Local radio clubs like these are great resources and we strongly encourage you to join one (or more)!
We haven't tested them all, but we did get the information from the club websites as opposed to a generic source like Repeater Book. For yesterday's training we only used the VHF national calling frequency and the ORCA 2 meter repeater. We might expand to using more repeaters and simplex frequencies when we do the 3/15 training, when volunteer instructors from the NorCal Lefty Radio League will be joining!
Our list is short but we think it's a good start. Of course, you don't have to be limited to the ones that we chose. We chose to keep it simple so that beginners wouldn't be overwhelmed by a list of a lot of options, but if you are interested in finding out about more repeaters or radio clubs, W6AER (a ham in Pacifica) has more extensive lists of Bay Area radio clubs and Bay Area repeaters.