Introduction

CHIRP driver for UV-K5/K6/5R radios running Egzumer firmware

This is a modification of a driver created by:
(c) 2023 Jacek Lipkowski [email protected]

Licensed cc-by-sa-4.0

How to use

At some point the driver will hopefully be added to official release of CHIRP.

Currently you can use modified version of CHIRP from releases. The modified CHIRP is built from source code and contains the driver. It is packed using pyinstaller into one file for convinience, however some antiviruses don't like that and report it as a threat. If you don't trust this file, then use the other method.

You can also use development version of driver uvk5_EGZUMER.py (right click, "Save link as...") and load it to CHIRP manually.

Warning

Set the UV-K5 (egzumer) radio model in the CHIRP before you upload/download a configuration.

Loading with menu

1. go to menu Help and turn on Developer mode
2. Restart CHIRP
3. Go to menu File, Load module...
4. Choose downloaded uvk5_EGZUMER.py, new radio will appear in Quansheng section in download/upload function.

Loading with CHIRP input argument

1. Create a shortcut to CHIRP program

2. Edit shortcut settings, in target field add at the end --module PATH_TO_DRIVER (replace PATH_TO_DRIVER with a real path) example : "C:\Program Files (x86)\CHIRP\chirpwx.exe" --module C:\chirp_egzumer\uvk5_EGZUMER.py

3. Run CHIRP with the shortcut, it will automatically load the driver.

Custom channel settings

By default CHIRP shows only default channel options, that are universal for all types radios. You can see and change custom channel settings by going to menu View and turning on Show extra fields, this will show more options in the Memories tab.

Custom firmware build options

This driver supports custom Egzumer firmware builds and detects which options have been used. Disabled options will be hidden in CHIRP. This only works if the configuration was read from a specific radio. You can use configuration files from other radios with different build options, but unsupported settings will be reset to defaults on the target radio.

Calibration settings

Those setting are not uploaded to the radio by default. If you make some changes in the calibration and you want to save it, you have to enable the Upload calibration option before uploading. If this is enabled only the calibration part of the configuration data is sent to the radio, without channels and other settings.

Use this option at your own risk. Make a backup of the calibration first! Some settings are calibrated at the factory and each radio has different and unique calibration data. You will not be able to restore those setting using some other radios settings. Be carefull not to use CHIRP config file that was downloaded from other radio. Each CHIRP config contains full EEPROM dump, it always did, even the original UV-K5 driver did this, so if you have some old config saved it also contains calibration section and can be used to restore the calibration, but the best way to make a backup is to use software that doesn't depend on CHIRP driver, like k5prog-win.

Calibration settings are raw values read from the EEPROM, not recalculated to dBm, dB or any particular units. All the settings are presented as they were in the stock Quansheng firmware. Not all calibration settings are used the same way by the egzumer firmware:

• Squelch - sensitivity is doubled if ENABLE_SQUELCH_MORE_SENSITIVE is enabled (enabled by default)
• Microphone sensitivity - not used at all
• RSSI levels - only used for small RSSI bar indicator if the firmware is built with the custom S-meter disabled (ENABLE_RSSI_BAR = 0)
• TX power - if built with ENABLE_REDUCE_LOW_MID_TX_POWER then medium power is further divided by 3, low power is divided by 5 (not enabled by default)