Chirp Programming Baofeng UV-5 hand-held radios for GMRS NOAA and Eddie's special sauce with Linux
A while ago I purchased a couple of Baofeng UV-5R +plus (redundant, but that's the model moniker) which came unlocked for programming from the distributor. This is a dual-band (amateur and FRS/GMRS) unit that can be programmed by hand. Since I'm 75 years old, I don't have the time left to fat finger 60+ frequencies on the Baofeng keypad, so I decided to use my Ubuntu (Debian) laptop with the open-source (free) Chirp software and a $16 programming cable. Most folks use 64 bit WinDo$ computers to run Chirp, but since I used to believe Bill Gates was the Anti-Christ, I don't have access to any Micro$oft compatible hardware made in this century.
After downloading the Chirp software, installation on Debian was an almost trivial three-command line process and one to launch the Chirp software. I use Red Hat/Centos Linux at work, but the process is very similar as long as Python 3 is already installed.
sudo apt install python3-wxgtk4.0 pipx (Debian)
sudo dnf install python3-wxpython4 pipx (RH/Centos)
meljr@meljr-XPS-13-9360: sudo apt install python3-wxgtk4.0 pipx
meljr@meljr-XPS-13-9360: sudo find / -name chirp-*.whl -print
meljr@meljr-XPS-13-9360: sudo pipx install --system-site-packages ./chirp-20250221-py3-none-any.whl
meljr@meljr-XPS-13-9360: sudo /root/.local/bin/chirp
Chirp automagically recognized the radio and how it is attached to my laptop, so from that point, the programming was just like filling out and saving a spreadsheet to a file before downloading to the radio; almost trivial. Now in conjunction with my Cell, SSB/CB and the JT's SOS feature, I'm ready to drive back to Nevada next weekend and more off-road adventure.
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