Program your UV-5X3 with CHIRP
One of the most frequently asked questions that we get here at BTECH is, “How do I program the channel memories in my UV-5X3?” The answer is, “Get CHIRP!” CHIRP is a free, open-source application for programming many different radios from dozens of manufacturers. You can use CHIRP to program 11 different BTECH models, including our amateur radios and our GMRS and MURS radios. In this post, we’ll show you how to program a BTECH UV-5X3 with CHIRP.
CHIRP runs on Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems, but in this post, I’ll be describing how to install and use the Windows version of CHIRP. To install CHIRP, first go to the CHIRP website and click the “get it!” button. On the next page, look for the reccomended version for your operating system (highlighted in green) and click on it to download the installer. Once the installer has downloaded, double-click on its icon and the installer will install CHIRP on your computer.
Next, open the app and download the data from the radio. You do this by clicking Radio→Download. If you’ve just purchased your radio, you’ll see something like this:
![CHIRP (show empty file)](png/chirp-download.png)
You can save this information, so that you can restore the radio to the factory settings later, by clicking on File→Save.
Next, enter the frequencies and repeaters that you want to program into your radio. I live in Ann Arbor, MI, so I’ve entered the 2m simplex frequency (146.52 MHz), and the repeaters that I can hit locally. Remember to also program the tone mode and tone frequency of the repeaters. You won’t be able to access the repeaters if these aren’t set properly. Here are what my channels look like after I edited the repeater information.
![CHRP](png/ann-arbor-repeaters.png)
Next, connect your UV-5X3 to your computer using the PC03 Programming Cable and turn on your radio.
Finally, you’re ready to program the radio. Click Radio→Upload to Radio, and CHIRP should download the memory channel information to your UV-5X3. Disconnect the cable and check to see that the radio has been programmed correctly.
For more information, check out the following links: