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Writing a new codeplug to the radio

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2021 3:11 am
by IDL
Hi David

With regard to the information displayed (greyed out) on the Radio Info tab, does this data get written back to the radio when you upload a codeplug, or is it simply being displayed from the previous download? I believe the Python script this is based on wrote the entire JSON file back to the radio.

Obviously the desired scenario is to read the data from the radio, open a newly configured codeplug file and write it back to the radio without affecting the radios hardware identity. I haven't been brave enough to try writing a fresh codeplug with different radio information in case it does overwrite it.

By the way I've now completed my codeplug with 82 Zones and 2494 channels covering 3 Hotspots and every Australian FM and DMR repeater. All works perfectly, however this weekend I need to program a number of radios for our local field day and need to confirm I can simply download from any radio, change the Callsign and DMR ID on the 'Radio Info' page then Upload the new codeplug back to it.

I also see you've fixed the 64 contact limit, but at this stage I'm still running with 64 contacts

Ian

Re: Writing a new codeplug to the radio

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2021 5:13 am
by IDL
I answered my own question. I decided to read from a second radio I have here and noted the Radio Info data. I then opened my codeplug file. The Radio Info didn't change and still displayed the hardware details from the 'read' radio so I wrote the new codeplug back to the radio and all is OK.

Brilliant.

Ian

Re: Writing a new codeplug to the radio

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2021 11:10 am
by MM7DBT
Hi Ian

Yeah the greyed out information (factory number etc) is stored in the JSON from the radio it was read from and then would be written to any radio it's uploaded to.
Although you'll notice that the Factory Number and Serial Number don't actually change between radios, unless they have now started assigning unique numbers. I suspect they are simply cloning the chips at the factory and not actually assigning each radio a unique serial.
I have the Kydera and was one of the first to purchase the radio from AliExpress and my Factory Number is 1235465 and Serial 56879909.

The only parts that might change between radios is the Firmware Date and Upload Date. Sometimes the Model Number may be different between the Kydera and Retevis versions.
"DR300UV" vs "RT73" - Although it wouldn't really affect the radio if this was changed. It could be manually edited in the JSON.
You can actually edit the serial number and upload to the radio, so if you have a few radios and wanted to tell them apart by serial, you can change them. Just be sure it's 8 digits :)

As for the 64 contact limit, I believe this has been fixed although I haven't had any report from anyone trying to use more than 64. I have tested this myself and I've had 300 random contacts written successfully. However there is a bug if you write over 255 contacts, the radio would show 'no contact' when transmitting. All contacts are written but the default contact for each channel is lost. This is due to how the default contact id is stored for each channel, up to 255 channels it only takes 1 byte and anything over that would need more than 1 byte. I haven't yet looked into how it's stored after 255. The CPS will correctly write up to the 2000 limit but I can't imagine anyone would realistically need more than 255 contacts, so it's not something I've looked at :P

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with programming multiple radios using the same codeplug file. It should work no problem but with so many variations with firmware and how much the CPS has screwed with the memory locations it's hard to predict possible bugs that might occur haha.

Thanks,
Dave

Re: Writing a new codeplug to the radio

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:34 pm
by IDL
I'm planning to update any older firmwares to the latest version prior to installing the codeplug so hopefully that should alleviate any firmware version issues.

Ian