Compass Programming the UV-5R John Leahy KK4ITX If you live in an area that has a large quantity of repeaters

like I do, you dont just want to put them in without a plan of some sort because re-entry is not as easy as it sounds. I did and it turned out to be a pain and I had to develop a plan beyond naming them and then clicking through the channels like guys are prone to do with remotes. My plan was to program the channel order based on the Compass Direction from my QTH and separate the channels in a way that was easy to remember as things are getting hard in that department. So first I developed this very complicated chart where the number represents the start Channel # and the letter is the compass direction of the start#. 10=N 60=SW 20=NE 70=W 30=E 80=NW 40=SE 90=Local 50=S 100=National

Since I use the OEM VIP software and it does not allow export of data I downloaded my data from my radio to Chirp and then exported to a CSV file that can be read with a spreadsheet program. I forgot that Chirp will not export channels that have OFF in the SCAN (OEM software) that shows up in the DUPLEX as OFF, each of these will have to be changed to NONE to export. After the export, load up your spreadsheet and the file. Insert a column before the Channel column; this will be your sort column. Using the chart above go down the list and insert a number 10-100 that represents the direction from your QTH of the repeater. (90) I use for my locals and (100) for Nat. Call V/U, Weather, GMRS, MURS and all the others that have National Wide use. Sort your spreadsheet based on your new Column A (get crafty and also sort by Freq. and Name). Now all your Channel numbers will be out of order and Col. A will be in order. Starting with the first one renumber the channels starting with 10, and #20s will start at 20, #30s start at 30 and so on. Before importing the file back to Chirp, save it with a unique name (so you sort column is there with data) THEN delete the new column and finally save it with another name and import it back to a NEW blank Chirp. Check to make sure the new file is the way you want it and upload to your radio. You can read it back to the VIP software or use as is. Now when you head south and you want those repeaters just start looking at Channel 50. I know that some of you have 15 repeaters due east of you and some have the Gulf of Mexico to the south with none, nothing is perfect. I have set aside Channels 0-9 for those temporary test like things you bump in to. Hope this at least gets you to working between the radio and computer. JL KK4itx@arrl.net 11/28/2012