In other News...Ok had another "I'll be screwed if I'm paying for something" moment and made another adapter. It's Monday (I hate Mondays, so why not just pile on the misery) so this is a "was made from crap lying around" project. I need to get CHIRP going as my new Baofeng UV-5R from Banggood just arrived and otherwise I'd have to wait for the cable to show up too, which is just stupid.
Some (l)user on the qrz forums knocked up a diagram using an FTDI that allows you to fart a TTL signal out and read back from the radio. Basically a SERVO cable with some soldering, but meh. I happen to have a dozen or so FTDIs in different flavors from every flight controller you can imagine, and plugs off some shitty headphones I didn't like and a power adapter I set fire to "accidentally on purpose" because it was noisy as hell and was a piece of shit if I ever did see one. So frankenserial it is.
A little while and some love-nips from my MetCal later and I have what looks like it'll work. I double, then triple-check the pinout against the diagram, then plug it in the USB and make sure the signed drivers from SiLabs install. I get a VCOM on port 4, so I fire up CHIRP and try to read from the radio and... NOTHING. Go back and check the wiring yet AGAIN. Nope... it's right. At first I'm like "Did I grab a eukered FTDI?", but no... I make it a habit to smash ANY dead serial adapter to bits with a hammer (took great pleasure in doing that to a dozen or so clone ones back when SiLabs bricked them all) so I'm NEVER tempted to try and use it again.
The cynic in me says " You know this is info from the intard-net. How much you wanna bet..." but I'm already swapping TX and RX, so he shuts up.
Try it again and winner, winner, chicken dinner. We have comms! My inner cynic crosses his arms and grins smugly, but he knows to keep his mouth shut while I'm trying to figure out new software. Of course later he'll nag me to death until I fix that effed-up diagram...
Turns out CHIRP was written by marginally sane people who actually put things together sensibly; once I figured out how the memory slot offset thing worked, I had all the default US FRS, Marine & NOAA channels stacked up, then I poked around to see what else I could fuck up... and whaddayooKNOW! A tiny 7-char + 7-char splash message!
Did I really have ANY choice about what to put there?!?
mnem
Yes, this should feel uncomfortably familiar.