Colin McDonald writes:
> the radio is easier to program by hand than by computer.
> just from the perspective of key presses alone, the radio is easier to
> program manually.
> If you have to type in tx and rx frequency, tab around to check or uncheck
> boxes, make selections in drop down boxes, press OK, use arrow keys and 
> all
> that stuff, it's far more work on the computer.
> Not less like some would have you believe.

	That is basically true but in Linux, the open-source
software is command-line-driven so it is not quite as
complicated. The problem right now is that the programming for
DCS or digital coded squelch is not there. I have some pressing
things going on right now for the next few days, but I plan to
see how the fellow who wrote the software handled the CTCSS
codes and see if I can extend what he did to also handle the
digital squelch.

	I have manually programmed some frequencies for public
safety services in this area that do use DCS and the radio did
receive properly so I can see if there is any rhyme or reason to
the memory settings for the DCS values.

	So far, it makes no sense to me. The radio uses two
bytes of memory in each channel record to set tones or DCS. The
same bytes are used for both the analog CTCSS and DCS codes.
There are 2 to the 16TH possibilities for setting the bits in
two bytes and I don't yet know if there is any scheme for
calculating the values or if you just have to set up this giant
lookup table.

	If no tone is used, both bytes read FF which is all bits
high.

You also say:

> However, the software is handy for uploading different frequency lists to
> the radio.  Like if you travel allot, or want to throw a different batch 
> of
> frequencies into memory, it's easier to do that with the computer by 
> loading
> a pre-saved file direct.

	Most definitely. 

> However, if your plan is to load all your favorite frequencies in, and
> forget it for ever more, then the software and cable are just extra
> non-essential costs.

	Even if you just set and forget, you may hit the wrong
button some day and not know what you did but it suddenly starts
behaving oddly. If you saved all your work to a file when it was
good, you can reload it the way it was and it will undo whatever
it was you accidentally did. That can sure save you some time.

	The memory map that you store even saves which channel
you were on when you last saved it so the only thing that isn't
saved is the volume setting.

	You are quite right, though, in that this radio is very
easy to manually program. The voice prompts when you go in to
the menus are truly golden. One day, I punched up the wrong menu
but the voice prompt stopped me before I did something stupid so
I just got out of that menu and got the right one rather than
scratching my head and wondering what I just did.

73 WB5AGZ