Free Shipping. Icom CS-208 Programming Software for Icom IC-208, Icom 208H. ICOM CS7100 Icom Programming software for IC-7100 See more.

Two of the big names in radio programming are. But which one should you choose? Is free, open source software that’s used with a third-party programming cable.

Makes commercial programming kits which include both software and a radio-specific cable. There is not even a question about this for me. $49 gets you ONE type of radio programmed with RT Systems. With Chirp and a $11 cable from Ebay, I can program my Yaesu VX-5R and FT-60R. So I’m already ahead $87.

That’s enough to take the XYL to dinner! I also have another $16 Ebay cable for my FT-8900. That same cable will also program at least two other models of Yaesu mobiles. So there’s another $33 saved. I’ll grant that Chirp is maybe not the easiest to use. But I can also say that some versions of RT Systems software I had for some older Yaesu HTs had some miserable copy protection on it and that was not a good user experience either.

I used Chirp on my Linux laptop and it works well enough. As far as the unsupported radios go, from what I’ve seen, the Chirp developers need access to a radio to build support for it. Since they are not getting paid, they can’t go out and buy every radio. If you want your radio supported, maybe you need to loan it to the developers, or else learn enough Python to build support for it yourself.

It’s not that hard. As far as PA3DM’s comment about open source software goes, well, I must disagree. Conn elkhart french horn serial numbers lookup. This very site is built on open source software, I can see that is it using PHP, JavaScript, WordPress, jQuery, the nginx web server — all open source, none of it “unstable”.

How about the Firefox web browser? Is that “tacky”?

What’s nice about Chirp and other open-source software is that you can look inside, you can make changes, you can fix it and you can contribute your changes. “What’s nice about Chirp and other open-source software is that you can look inside, you can make changes, you can fix it and you can contribute your changes.” That is exactly what makes open source software tacky. And unstable. Too many know-it-all guys poking in other peoples code. Pretending they know better. In the end a project is unmaintainable and ready for the trash bin. Look at Joomla for example.

Throw V2.5 away and start all over in V3 leaving no decent migration path for millions of users. But the topic was about CHIRP vs RTS. And RTS beats CHIRP. For a price that is. I do use both for my radios. I have found that for the newer radios, RT Systems usually has the software ready before Chirp which is not surprising since they make a profit.

However, as Chirp comes online with the matching software it seems to me that it has fewer holes or missing parts for a particular radio. So, I eventually move to Chirp as my old reliable solution. Of course, if Chirp or RT Systems don’t have the radio listed, I end up using the one which has it.

I have only used one other programming software from ICOM, because they gave it away free for the ID-880H. However, later switched to Chirp for that one as well.

So bottom line I prefer the one that works the best for the particular radio I am using at time. Kind of the amateur radio philosophy, use what works best at the moment. I have been using CHIRP for at least 3 years now, and it is my primary software of choice. As for the list of radios supported in this article, it is not complete. This right from the CHIRP wiki has a complete list of radios supported and the process to get a radio supported if it is not currently and requested. The developers are very professional, and are not just shoot by the hip type.

All changes, additions, and updates are gone though a fine comb before getting out in the daily builds. For a free service provided by radio operators for radio operators, I will support them all the way instead of sending money to RTS that locks down program cords to be unuseable without buying through them the software/cord. I have been using CHIRP’s Latest Daily Build for about a year and there is nothing shabby or clunky about it. It works flawlessly on all three of my Boafengs. The major issues arising from its use are people not reading the tutorials before trying to program with it. When I bought an ICOM IC2300H earlier this year, I bought the RT Systems package because CHIRP didn’t support that model. I had more problems with that package than I care to remember.