CHIRP

h1. +Mac OS X TIPS:+

h1. Mac USB DRIVERS FOR:

h2. FTDI cables:
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
Version 1.5.1 is available for Mac OS X on 64 bit, 32 bit and PPC machines.

h2. Prolific cables - official drivers for the genuine Prolific cables:
http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/CustomerLogin.aspx
Login as guest/ guest & look in the Support section. Specified to work with Mac OSX 10.6, 10.7, & 10.8.

h2. Prolific cables (counterfeit and/or “Generic”:
For Lion (10.7.x) and Mountain Lion (10.8.x):
http://changux.co/osx-installer-to-pl2303-serial-usb-on-osx-lio/
For earlier versions of Mac OS X up to 10.5 Leopard. Also some reports of success with Snow Leopard, Lion:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/osx-pl2303/

h2. RTSystems cables:
https://www.rtsystemsinc.com/kb_results.asp?ID=9
http://www.rtsystems.us/downloads/MacDrivers/RTSystemUSBSerialDrivers.pkg.mpkg.zip

h2. Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge VCP Drivers
http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx
Macintosh OSX driver for the Intel and PowerPC Platforms versions 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8

h1. +TIPS:+

In many cases you need to connect the cable to the radio first, then power the radio on, while holding down some buttons. The exact procedure varies by radio.

Some radios need to be put into a "clone" mode to transfer to PC, some radios may need to be configured to use the mic/speaker jacks for PC transfer instead of for the speaker/mic. The exact procedure varies by radio.

You will need to download from the radio to CHIRP first, before uploading anything to the radio. CHIRP creates a template from the radio download so it knows how to talk to the radio.

If you want to download from one radio and upload those settings to another radio, first download from each radio to a separate “tab” of CHIRP. Then copy/paste from one tab to the other & upload back to the same radio that produced that tab. Do not try to upload to a radio directly from a tab that was not downloaded from that same radio.

Many USB to serial cables include a counterfeit Prolific chip. This can cause connection problems because the official Prolific driver will ignore the counterfeit chip. Some people have reported success by using an older version of the Prolific driver, or a 3rd party driver.

If you are using multiple USB cables, each will create a different “virtual port”, meaning that you will need to select the correct virtual port for your radio when connecting to your radio. CHIRP will give you this opportunity each time you download from the radio.

If CHIRP won’t launch & won't run, you may have neglected to install the Python runtime. CHIRP needs that. Even though Mac OS X includes Python built-in, the runtime has to be installed is because it includes PyGTK and some other libraries that Chirp requires, in addition to Python itself.
http://www.d-rats.com/download/OSX_Runtime/

If your radio is not "Supported", you can try downloading the newest Daily Build to see if support was recently added.

h1. TROUBLESHOOTING:

You can verify that the drivers are installed & working by connecting the USB cable to your Mac, then running “System Profiler”, or “System Information” (found in /Applications/Utilities ). When the USB cable is connected and drivers correctly installed, the cable will show up in the USB section of the System Profiler.

Another way to see that the driver is correctly installed is to open Terminal and type:
@ls /dev/cu*@
It will return a list of virtual serial ports including something similar to:
@/dev/cu.usbserial-A501XQ5I@ (suffix will vary)

You may also type:
@kextstat@
That will return a long list of kexts, including something similar to this at the bottom (most recently installed are listed last):
@142 0 0xffffff7f81fc8000 0x8000 0x8000 com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver (2.2.18) <112 32 5 4 3 1>@

Look at the CHIRP log for clues.
@~/.chirp/debug.log@

Join the Mailing list & search the archives for similar problem reports & how they were resolved, and/or ask the group. Please include enough info about the problem and situation so the community will be able to help you.

Not all functionality is supported on all radios. See "Model Support":http://chirp.danplanet.com/download/0.3.0/Model_Support.html

h2. CHIRP Beginners Guide:
http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Beginners_Guide