Programming PC

LincolnMan · Post by **LincolnMan** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:06 am

Greetings, I have a Kenwood TK-880 radio, using the kpg49d software I have sucessfully programmed my radio many times, one thing I've noticed is that usually it takes a dozen times or so of retrying before it will sucessfully write to the radio, it will write so many blocks and then pop up "connection error" or something to that effect, if I keep retrying it will eventually write all the way, I've noticed that tinkering with the serial port settings in the "Device Manager" under XP will help it, I've set the serial port speed down to 2400 baud and it seems to work better, my PC is a P4-1.8Ghz. I have tried using the cable and software at work on our radio service pc (486 dx2-66) that we use for programming Motorola and GE MPA radios and it wont work at all, it always says "connection error" and that machine we are running DOS only. What do some of you use for flawless writing to these radios?

PS The programming cable I'm using is one from Ebay, made by Cason Radio.

n5tbu · Post by **n5tbu** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 12:30 pm

I think your programming cable has a problem,Kenwoods are not that finicky.
the software is meant for a dos machine not a dos window.
mod

LincolnMan · Post by **LincolnMan** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:24 am

Thats what I was wondering, I program the radios under XP on the only PC I've been able to get it to work on, we might have to buy a different cable or something to make this more reliable.

Thayne · Post by **Thayne** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:39 am

I'm surprised that software will run at all on XP. I keep and old pentium II with win 98 on it and always run the Kenwood software fron ms-dos as the older Kenwood programs won't work reliably even in a dos window.

(My .02)

LincolnMan · Post by **LincolnMan** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 3:22 am

Ok, we figured out the problem, we took the cable (ebay special, hehe) to our repeater service tech and he programmed and read some radios with no problem, we even carried our radio service PC into the shop and hooked it up, programmed without a hitch, so scratching our heads all the way back to our office we tinkered with it some more and found that the power supply wasnt providing enough amperage to allow the radio to program, we dug out an old Motorola base station power supply, hooked it up and now we can program our TK-880's without a hitch, the reason I was able to program them at home with my P4 XP system is that my power supply was better than what we had at the office but still not enough current to program reliably.