Month: October 2017

The firmware upgrade instructions for the MD-9600 say (in Chinglish):

“Press P1+ Alarm key(red key) to connect the power of  MD-9600, ( NOT JUST TURN ON THE RADIO!!!!!!)display blinks and open upgraded software”

This seems to translate to most American English speakers that one should press and hold P1 + Alarm and then hit the power button.

Nope.  That gets you exactly nowhere.  And I can see how they tried to explain it (“connect the power”) and why an American English speaker would misunderstand it.

The actual sequence goes like this (and it’s documented here and there on the web; I can’t remember now where I found it):

1) Turn the MD-9600 on.

2) Turn off the power supply connected to the MD-9600.  (Do not turn off the MD-9600 first!)

3) NOW press P1 + Alarm key (red key) and hold them in

4) Turn on the power supply connected to the MD-9600.

Blank screen will blink on and off, you are now in Firmware Upgrade Mode.

They also get the concepts of “upload” and “download” backward, in my book.  The button that says “Download Update File” really ought to say “Write Update File to Radio” or something like that.  But eventually you get the idea.

Exit question:  Would it kill Tytera/TYT to hire an English-As-First-Language speaker to at least edit their documentation?

The TYT MD-9600 is up and running with the latest Hoosier DMR code plug (I used the one for the MD-2017 dual band handheld; the code plugs are interchangeable).  I’ve just got it sitting on my desk in the office, hooked up to my old 23W power supply, and connected to a Slim Jim J-pole that’s just hanging in the window.  So not a fabulous receiving setup, but I did get a really good signal back from the Parrot when I tested it earlier. I haven’t been able to raise the W9AMT VHF DMR repeater yet, but I think I need to use 1) a better antenna that’s 2) mounted up a little higher to get line of sight on that repeater. That’s been a constant problem from here with the hand-held transceiver, and generally having trouble reaching both the UHF and VHF DMR repeaters here is why I invested in the MD-9600. (Cue Tim Allen shouting, “MORE POWER!”)

I like this radio.  It seems like a robust unit, the mic is better than the one that came with my Tytera TH-9800, and if I had a complaint about the radio in and of itself, it would be that the radio doesn’t have a detachable control head.  Which is OK, because I’m going to put it in my go-box anyway, but it would be nice to see TYT/Tytera come out with one of these in the same case as the analog TH-9800.  Then I’d consider putting one in the Escape.  Given that I’m sure this radio has the same guts in it that they use for more expensive commercial DMR radios, I doubt that will happen.  But a ham can dream.

Which brings me back to my major bitch about this radio, hinted at in the previous post.  If you’re going to put this much thought and care into building a DMR radio, why in hell would you ship it with a cheap-ass USB programming cable that was probably bought from the cheapest cable maker in Shenzhen, and which broke before it was even used the first time?  Just because the thing said “TYT” on it isn’t good enough.  Just ship a decent generic USB cable and be done with it.

Otherwise, I have no complaints; I got the radio from Grapevine, down in Texas, and I couldn’t be happier about the service; Jason kept everyone advised about the status of their preorders, and he was even shipping radios out while Harvey was wreaking chaos down in the southern half of the state.  It’s not his fault that the cable that shipped with the radio was sub-standard, and I didn’t even bother him with it once I realized I could use a generic cable.  I look forward to buying more DMR stuff from Jason in the future.

With any luck, I’ll be able to get on the roof this weekend and swap out my 6M ground pole with the dual-band J-pole I’ve had sitting on the window sill in the shack for the last four years.  I’m not doing any 6M FM right now and I’d really like to string up a dipole for that band anyway, so it’s time to make that swap.

I purchased a TYT MD-9600 DMR radio a little while back, and when trying to program it, kind of soft-bricked it because the programming cable that came with it was a piece of crap and kept dropping the connection to the computer.  I thought I had the cable working at one point, and tried sending the code plug to the radio, but it failed in mid-send and the radio just sat there saying “UNPROGRAMMED”.

So I sat on it for a while because I didn’t really have time to fiddle with it.

Then I ran into John Miklor’s review of the radio today, and it caught my eye that the programming cable…

…is just a standard, straight-through USB to mini-USB.

Well, alrighty then.  Grabbed a spare USB cable with a mini-USB end, plugged it in, and voila, I could program the radio no problem at all.

Now I just need to grab the latest Hoosier DMR code plug and throw away that flimsy piece of crap programming cable that came with the radio.