Numb Awan wrote:

In MEMORY mode, the offset direction indicators (+ -) are both displaying +simultaneously+ where there is an offset selected.
In VFO mode they display correctly (+ +OR+ -, depending on the offset direction).

What you are describing is normal. This is how the radio works. It is only in VFO (frequency) mode that you will see the independent display of the "+" or "-" symbols.

These radios do not use offsets in MR (channel) mode. For this reason, menu 25 [SFT-D] and menu 26 [OFFSET] have no purpose and do not function in MR mode (See the Reference for UV-5R Menus available "here":https://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_MenuDef.php). Even though these menus pretend to work in MR mode, when opened on a memory SFT-D will always display OFF and OFFSET will always display 000.000. Again, this is because there is no shift direction or offset stored in a memory channel.

Instead of using 3 things (RX frequency, shift direction and offset) to store a repeater channel, these radios instead use the RX frequency and the TX frequency (only 2 things -- which conserves memory). The "+-" indication is to let the user know that the programmed RX frequency and TX frequency are not the same (as would be the case for a repeater, odd-split, cross-band or TX disabled channels).

Prior to using CHIRP, MEMORY mode functioned correctly - the same as in VFO mode, as far as I can recall.

You recall incorrectly. In MR mode, the UV-5R (and its close cousins) display "+-" when the RX and TX frequencies are not the same. The UV-5R has worked this way all the way back to when it was introduced over 10 years ago.

Weirdly, the offset frequencies still work as they should. Only the display is affected.

Right. Because offsets aren't used to access repeaters. Frequencies are.

User RX frequency <-- Repeater TX frequency
User TX frequency --> Repeater RX frequency

The notion of shift direction and offset are just a shorthand method of describing the TX frequency. When I bough my first 2 meter rig back in the 70s, it used 2 crystals for each channel. One for the RX frequency and one for the TX frequency.

CHIRP allows the user to enter the values as RX frequency, shift direction (Duplex) and offset, but then uses these values to calculate the TX frequency. It is this TX frequency, along with the RX frequency, that is sent to the radio (because that is what it uses).

You can see the TX frequency by selecting the channel in a display line that has it Memory Display Format (menu 21 [MDF-A] or menu 22 [MDF-B]) set to FREQ. Then display the TX frequency by either pressing the [PTT] button or tapping the [] key to put the radio into reverse mode (an "R" will be displayed in the upper status display area). Tap the [] key again to exit reverse mode.

Additionally the split "S" sometimes displays on the screen, sometimes does not, even if selected.

The "S" is displayed when you have menu 7 (TDR), aka dual watch, set to ON.

I downloaded the CHIRP CSV file (in LibreOffice) to try and understand the inputs - and noted that in the DUPLEX column, null values ("0") have been introduced into the column where the POSITIVE offset is selected, and "-0" values where NEGATIVE offset has been selected.

It would seem that the CSV file may have become corrupted (but this has nothing to do with any of the above). Correct values for the Duplex field would be "" (null), "+", "-", etc. which would indicate simplex, TX frequency higher than RX frequency and TX frequency lower than RX frequency respectively.

I wonder if these null values are somehow intefering with the Boafeng handset programming? (should they be + or -, not "+"0 or -0 ?) I don't code, so it's a mystery to me.

No. If you would manually program a repeater channel from the keypad, the memory would behave exactly the same. That is how the radio works.

select VFO mode¶

select the top (A) VFO¶

erase the target memory with menu 28 [DEL-CH]¶

key the RX frequency into the VFO¶

store the VFO frequency and settings into the target memory using menu 27 MEM-CH¶

key the TX frequency into the VFO¶

store the VFO frequency into the target memory using menu 27 MEM-CH¶

As you can see from the steps above, menu 25 [SFT-D] and menu 26 [OFFSET] have nothing to do with programming repeater channels into a memory. They are only needed and used in VFO mode. How they are set (right or wrong) has on affect on programming memories manually.

I have reset my device multiply, and have the latest download (GTK 2.24.10, PyGTK 2.24.0, Python 2.7.10), but this mildly disturbing behaviour persists.

Get used to it. Neither a RESET nor CHIRP can change that. It is how the radio is designed to work.

Jim KC9HI

Explanation provided.