Hi all,
I just today received my programming cable for the baofeng uv5r.
After many mishaps including: having to roll back my usb driver,
having a cable problem which resulted in my radio transmitting static
to a local repeater without my knowledge, having a power surge on my
usb port, a complete laptop melt down, and many more, I am finally
ready to program my radio.
I have downloaded and gotten the radio to connect to both the vip
software from baofeng, and churp.
When I try to read the radio with chirp, it appears to work.  However,
when I try to read the radio with vip, it says "fail connect with
transceiver."
This only happens in the channel read screen, not the other settings
screen.  It reads settings fine, but doesn't read channels.
I also tried to program a channel into the radio manually, and it
doesn't show up with either chirp or vip when I plug in the cable.
Is it possible that I need an uncorrupt image file to upload to the
radio so that it can program channels?  I have firmware number bfb307,
by the way.
Also  with chirp, how do you program in the channels?  Do you export
as a csv file and then use the template?  I really think I might for
some reason have a corrupt image file loaded into the radio from
factory.  This is the only explanation I can conceive of for the radio
not wanting to read.
I have read the miklor website literaly top to bottom, and I've also
been very active on the baofeng support mailing list, which I know
many of you folks on this list are also a part of.
I think the first thing I'd like to do is get a new and working image
file to upload into the radio.  Then, I'd like to figure out some way
to program the radio, preferably using chirp, that doesn't hate jaws.
I'm off to bed now, as I don't think I can handle one more broken
English error message.
If anybody's got a chirp image from bfb307 they could send me, I would
be in your debt.

thanks for any advice you have, and 73 to all.
Zach, kk4ruz