CHIRP

I'm having this issue also

Seems as if this is not as important as it is to me.
no attempts to respond other than you. So I guess they are boat anchors. No don't weigh enough, or cost enough. Lesson learned , Waisted money.

What operating system and programming cord are you using?

I have been researching this issues for a few weeks now.

Windows 10 professional version 1803, EZsync 701 programming cord, no driver needed.

Same here, also tried a cheap knock off cable and on windows 8. With my uv-100 I set it as uv-3r and it works fine. With the bf230 it just doesn't ack first command. On the bf230 I tried bf888 and it doesnt respond. I've seen videos of people changing stuff and it working but it hasn't helped me. Ive tried chirp and other software from baofeng. I'm going to try it with my windows x
p soon and see if it works there.

I'm not sure if your still trying to program this but I found out how to today. I used the bf-480 pro software and it works ok. When reading from or writing to the radio it does fail some but it will work after you retry. Here's the link for the software.
http://www.baofengradio.com/endownload.asp?BigClassName=Programming%20Software&SmallClassName=&page=5

Ron Boisvert wrote:

Seems as if this is not as important as it is to me.
no attempts to respond other than you.

The addition of a new radio to Chirp requires two things:
1) a volunteer developer who takes the task to work on this driver,
2) availability of test equipment, such as a loaner radio (see Rules For Loaning A Radio).
Unfortunately, you need to wait until both conditions have been met.

I have noticed the link I provided doesn't seem to still have the right software. After using 4 of these radios over a year I can say they are poor, while they do work the range is bad. Most of mine barely still work and I can only get about half a mile now. I have a uv-100 and some uv-5rs and they work very well. The uv-100 I have been using about 5 years I think and it has held up better than any radio I've ever had, The uv-5rs I have had about a month so not sure how long they will hold up but the range on them is very good and I can't say anything bad about them.