Because I chose CHRIP this is actually possible because it supports both radios. First step is to get a cable and corresponding driver working.
Again I chose from Ham Radio Outlet. These guys are great. Regardless of whether I spend $200 or $20, they always overnight ship and even when I order late, it magically appears on my doorstep at 10am the next day. Its instant gratification!
I ordered the WXUSB made by Wouxun (who also make the Baofung UV-5R) and hoped again it would be a Prolific chipset or FTDI chipset. I was not disappointed; it turned out to be a Prolific chipset with the default USB vendor id.
How to get it working
- Download the driver for your 64bit OSX
- Unpack the driver (double click on osx-pl2303.kext.zip)
- Copy osx-pl2303.kext to /System/Library/Extensions
- sudo cp -r ~/osx-pl2303.kext /System/Library/Extensions/
Load the driver
- sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/osx-pl2303.kext
- Plug your USB-to-Serial in
- Test via: ls -l /dev/cu.PL2303-*
If you see a device with above name, you have installed your driver successfully
The next step was really following the directions of how to use CHIRP with the UV-5R. I found he's got a great site in general for the UV-5R. I tried both the latest release build and the latest daily build and both worked great for this radio. As always note that if you want to copy memories from one radio to another, first export them to a file. Don't try to just download and then upload. You will need to download from the destination radio, then import the exported file from earlier and then re-upload. This is because each chirp image contains data specific to each radio.
Hope this helps.
Trying to use your tips to get my UV5r to work on OSX 10.8 mountain lion. I've gotten to step 4 but I don't understand sudo cp -r ~/osx-pl2303.kext /System/Library/Extensions/. I have CHIRP installed already and I think the prolific driver is working and I can see a prolific device under system information with the cable plugged in.
ReplyDeleteBut the only ports CHIRP will let me select are bluetooth ports. /dev/cu.Bluetooth-PDA-Sync, and /dev/cu.Bluetooth-Modem.
Did you ever get pas this step? I am having the same issue.
DeleteI'm not too clear on the sudo...
ReplyDeleteFigured out the sudo is a command for terminal. I tried a few variations of what is in step 4, because a copy and paste of it didn't work. Now I messed with something because terminal attempts to run the command as soon as I hit "command V" to paste it, whereas before I had to hit enter to run the command.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how to get this radio working and now I'm afraid I'm messing too much with my MAC to do so. CHIRP is installed both the stable version and daily build, the pl2303 driver is in my extensions folder. No dice. And it's not worth ruining my $1000 Macbook for a $30 radio.
I copied this into my extensions folder and got this: System Extension cannot be used: The system extension “/System/Library/Extensions/osx-pl2303.kext” was installed improperly and cannot be used. Please try reinstalling it, or contact the product’s vendor for an update.
ReplyDeleteThe driver web page has an update for both Mavericks and Mountain Lion:
ReplyDeletehttp://nozap.me/driver/osxpl2303/index.html
Give that a try and if it works, let me know so I can update the post.
Thanks for the feedback!
an you please update the instructions for the new file? I'm thoroughly confused.
DeleteI agree, if there is anyway you can explain the programing from start to finish for the new update that would help clear things up.
ReplyDeleteThank you in advance.
Mehdielkacemi@gmail.com
I am new to mac book and I am completely lost. I am a firefighter and have no clue where to find these things.
ReplyDeleteAnyway we can get a step by step on this? I get lost at step 4.
ReplyDeleteFirst a big thank you to Aaron for getting this discussion started.
ReplyDeleteI am somewhat of a UNIX nerd, but I had to take a couple of extra steps to get this to work. This was for MacOS Lion.
So when you download the osx-pl2303.kext zip file, you will most likely do this as regular user not root (or super user), and then it will be unzipped into a folder named osx-pl2303.kext in your Downloads folder.
The whole point of the sudo command is that you can do things as root.
But you can also just type "su root", but of course you have to know the admin password.
Before you do that you have to "cd ~/Downloads"
After you "su root", you then need to copy the files from your download folder to the extensions folder.
cp -r ~/osx-pl2303.kext /System/Library/Extensions/
After this, I had to do a couple of extra commands (your mileage may vary).
First you have to cd to the destination directory:
cd /System/Library/Extensions/
I had to change ownership of the files from me to root and then I had to change the group to wheel. So this is:
chown -R root osx-pl2303.kext
and
chgrp -R wheel osx-pl2303.kext
The final command is:
kextload /System/Library/Extensions/osx-pl2303.kext
Once you have done all that (whew!) you can run the chirp software and you will now see a device that will work when you select Download from Radio from the Radio menu:
/dev/cu.PL2303-00002006
To test this, plug in the cable to your Mac before you plug in the radio, because if you do it wrong the radio will start transmitting. Ouch.
Once you have found that you have the driver installed correctly, follow the on screen instructions.
It really works, and I hope my added instructions here are sufficient to get you there.
Good luck!!!!
I'm getting a "not privileged" error trying to load the driver. I am running OS Yosemite on my Mac. what do I need to get it to load? I cannot even change ownerships either.
DeleteOne typo in the above it is not
ReplyDeletecp -r ~/osx-pl2303.kext /System/Library/Extensions/
it should be
cp -r ./osx-pl2303.kext /System/Library/Extensions/
Good luck!
Aaron, I apologize for spamming your blog, but I had one more thing that I had trouble with this morning. You have to be in Memory mode instead of VFO mode for this to work. I am sure this is intuitive, but it took me a while. Thanks again for getting this discussion started.
ReplyDeleteHow do I go into "Memory mode" ?
DeleteATP Connect. How about some more complete instructions? You mention commands, things like that but commands where? So some things, then but wait do some things before you do that? How about a step to step instructions?
ReplyDeleteLooks like you know how to get this to work, would love to get it to work too.
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ReplyDelete