Feature #11425
closedAdd Channel name character limit of 8 for Radioddity GA-510
100%
Description
There is an 8 character limit for the Name field for Radiooddity GA-510. If you have more than 8 characters in the "Name" column, it will definitely display garbled characters, and will potentially brick the radio, as it happens for me. Per Customer Service: "Please note that the channel name cannot exceed 8 characters. If it is 9-10 characters, it will be displayed as garbled characters. The channel name cannot be too long."
Recommend adding a feature to truncate "name" to 8 characters and adding a popup window with a warning message.
How I discovered this:
I had programmed in names for 70+ channels, set the radio to display the channel name instead of frequency, then entered scanner mode. When it got to the long names, the radio locked up. I've been unable to reprogram with Chirp, or use any of the buttons except Side Key 1 which switches to FM radio mode.
Example name: "GMRS 725/22"
Files
| IMG_4672-44f1fe52-ffd7-4748-9005-879ef8fb2409.jpg (709 KB) IMG_4672-44f1fe52-ffd7-4748-9005-879ef8fb2409.jpg | Showing display with garbled characters. | ||
| config.txt (1.17 KB) config.txt | |||
| Radioddity_GA-510_20240822.img (20.2 KB) Radioddity_GA-510_20240822.img | |||
| debug_log.txt (8.56 KB) debug_log.txt |
Updated by Brian Pike 8 months ago
- File config.txt config.txt added
- File Radioddity_GA-510_20240822.img Radioddity_GA-510_20240822.img added
- File debug_log.txt debug_log.txt added
[Uploaded from CHIRP next-20240827]
I also have a GA-510 that no longer works. The circumstances were essentially the same as the original reporter's: we programmed in a long channel name, used the scanning functionality, and on a channel with a long name the radio became essentially unusable (except for the FM radio feature). Since I can't communicate with the radio anymore, the *.img files I've uploaded are versions of what was downloaded from the radio when it was working.
Radioddity support has told me, "the GA-510 has an 8 character limit for channel names. If the channel name exceeds 8 characters the radio will become bricked." The GA-510 does not seem to have a way to recover from this problem.
Updated by Dan Smith 8 months ago
- File ga510.py added
Okay, that's a GA510v2, which they told me is almost a direct clone of the UV17 radio, and I added it as such. I'll queue a change to limit the name length to 8 chars for that variant for the future, but I'm not sure how to help recover existing radios. The radio stores 12 characters for the name, so obviously it's a firmware bug if the radio chokes unrecoverably with a name that does actually fit. I've never actually bricked a radio with chirp myself (despite doing untold manner of things to hundreds of them in the process of writing drivers).
I assume you've tried all manner of things to get it out of the jam, like turning it on with various buttons held down (including PTT), etc? Some quick googling on resetting the UV-17Pro which this is based on seems to show plenty of people who got their radio locked up by other means and are unable to reset it...
Sorry this happened for sure, but it's hard to work around such a fatal firmware bug like that :/
I've attached the queued change to limit it to 8 chars so you can use that with any other of these you might have until the next release.
Updated by Dan Smith 8 months ago
- Status changed from New to Closed
- % Done changed from 0 to 100
Applied in changeset github|d064ebdebdcf16f212d423ca0387467d8a95f522.