Ham Radio HT Programming

hamradioprogramming

OK, now this is a pretty cool service.

My friend Clint Bradford, K6LCS, has opened a website where he is offering to program almost any HT you can think of for $35. The website is called HamRadioProgramming.com.

The process is very straightforward. You mail him your radio, he’ll program up to 60 memory channels of your choice, and he ships it right back via USPS Priority Mail. Don’t know the frequencies outside your immediate area? Clint will look them all up and program them in. Pretty darn slick.

Now, when I first heard about it I thought to myself, if you’re smart enough to pass an amateur radio exam, shouldn’t you be smart enough to program an HT?

Well, first it’s not really about being smart enough. My first HT was a little Kenwood TH-27A and honestly, it wasn’t that hard to program. Things were different in the old days! 🙂 Fast forward twenty (plus) years, my Wouxun and Baofeng radios are a different story. If hadn’t purchased the programming cable, learned the software, figured out how to get the drivers to work with the radio, etc., I’m not sure my radios would have ever been programmed. In fact, I’ve never been able to program my Baofeng UV-3R because I couldn’t get the drivers to work. Could be just me, but it can be a real pain.

But, let’s say you’re not intimidated by learning new software and tweaking around with USB drivers. This service still makes a lot of sense for those who don’t do a lot of programming because you save the cost of buying those foolish programming cables. I have a different one for both my Wouxun and Baofeng radios and I think I paid $15 for each one.

If you want to save yourself a bunch of time, technical headaches, and the cost of a programming cable, take a look at what he’s offering. If you’re not interested, I bet you know someone who might be.

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

8 Responses to “Ham Radio HT Programming”

  • Clint K6LCS:

    Gordon West and I started this “pre-programming” of HTs while I was working at Ham Radio Outlet – Anaheim back in 2004-ish. YES – it may be said that we are turning folks into “appliance operators” and not “true hams.” And I accept that argument – to a point. But if we can get folks on the air … THAT’S the important thing. Yes, we can follow up with “How to Manually Program Your HT” classes (and I have created a bunch of “cheat sheets” that are posted on the DOCS page at http://www.k6lcs.com). But I sure can remember my first HT (Standard C288a and Standard C558a) and that excitement of first getting on the air. THANK YOU, Matt, for your unexpected and kind words!

  • w3fis, Paul:

    The driver problem is due to “fake” Prolific chips in the cable. Prolific put a “poison pill” in their later drivers that detects the fake chip, not letting you talk to it.

    All you need to do is to get an OLDER driver, and things work fine. I use the same driver for my Wouxun, Baofeng UV-5R and UV-3R, as well as my Yaesu FT 817 and X1M. I think the older driver that works (for Windows XP) is available on the Wouxun or Baofeng web site. A “Google” search will turn up what you are looking for.

    73 /paul W3FIS

  • $35 is a steal for someone to program a Baofeng radio. You couldn’t pay me enough to do that. Luckily I was able to use Chirp to program my Baofeng, shortly before it ended up back in the box and stored away. :-/

  • david-kk4uct:

    HI, my name is david my question is you programmed Motorola spectra 9000 high power into 2meters band,motorola vhf model T83FWA7HA9AK.thank you for you information and waiting for you answer.I,live Georgia.

  • kk4uct:

    hi,my name is david my question is do you programmed Motorola spectra 9000 hight power into 2 meters band-Motorola spectra vhf model-t83fwa7ha9ak,thank you waiting I,live in Georgia.good bless

  • Paul KD9DHS:

    I have two radios one is A d-star and the other is A DMR,could you program these for me? thanks!!!

  • KF7ARG:

    Link is dead >>> HamRadioProgramming.com.

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