CHIRP

I'm researching trying to disable the alarm function on UV-5R series radios as it tends to be a distracting feature that many hams neither want nor need. This feature is activated by a long press of the "CALL" button and typically causes a siren to sound, the LEDs to flash, and "ALARM" to display on the LCD screen. The problem is that it is to easy for this button to be inadvertently pushed long enough to activate this annoying feature (which can actually cause the radio to transmit depending on settings).

I've enabled developer options in CHIRP and have been using the browser to explore the possible programmable settings more thoroughly. What I have discovered so far is that setting "almode" to a decimal value of 3 (binary 11) disables the "ALARM" message on the LCD screen and setting the alarm flag (single bit field) to 0 prevents the siren from sounding (though it is still being generated, just muted).

During this process of discovery, I couldn't help but notice that there are seven one bit flags in the browser for these radios. That's one bit short of a full eight bit byte. Is there another bit that the browser isn't showing us here? If so, would it be possible to gain access to it via the browser to explore its impact on radio function? Perhaps it affects LED function in alarm mode?

As I've said, I've already determined that the siren and "ALARM" message can be suppressed. If the flashing LED could also be suppressed (perhaps through this last flag) then the alarm feature could essentially be deactivated on these radios programmatically.

Thanks,
Bob L.
KB5ASW