Some of the steps to create a bootable USB stick could be done in the GUI as well, but as some of them can’t and you have to go to the shell anyway, I decided to do all of the steps in the shell. How to make a bootable usb drive.

My strong recommendation at this point is to use the Chirp software and get a FTDI-based programming cable. You will be a much happier Baofeng, Wouxun or Icom owner. You will be a much happier Baofeng, Wouxun or Icom owner. Prolific (Clone) USB Cable Driver Installation. You can also do this same procedure with an FTDI.

This past week, I purchased my first ham radio in 20 years. Researching posts on this multireddit I created of various subreddits dedicated to Ham Radio, I learned a lot about the current state of ham radio and some ways to get back into the hobby. I would like to share the results of programming my new on my Mac running OS X Yosemite 10.10.2. The UV-5R-2 is a cheap, Chinese made $30 2-meter & 70cm ham radio.

It seemed like a low risk way to get back into the hobby. Reviews generally say it is an ok radio, especially for a beginner. While certainly no, it does exactly what I need: getting me on the radio. If it turns out to be a junk radio in the long run or if my interest drops again, I’m only out less than $100.

Outlook for Mac: Version 15.21.1 (160411) OS X: 10.11.4. Ever since some updates within the past month Outlook started asking for password every single time it started. Microsoft Outlook 2011 for Mac won't remember passwords Hi Everyone, Since installing the latest update for MS Outlook 2011, outlook could not access the keychain passwords. Fix Outlook 2011 forgetting passwords If you use Microsoft Outlook 2011 for OS X, after upgrading to OS X Mavericks you might find the program periodically forgetting passwords for your various accounts, and continually prompting you to enter them. Outlook for mac not saving passwords. In the left pane, click the account in which you want to change the password. In the right pane, enter a new password in the Password box. Close the Accounts window.

One of the early tips I read early on is that programming a Baofeng is a frustrating experience. For a geek who takes pride in UX, this concerns me a lot. To counter this, it was suggested that I use a special USB cable to connect the Baofeng to my computer, where the application allows for fairly easy programming of the radio. Of course, it isn’t as simple as buying any Baofeng USB cable.

There are apparently many cheap ($8-10) USB cables that use cloned or reverse engineered chipsets. This leads to a lot of driver incompatibility issues, flakey connection issues, etc. I found many blog and forum posts (which I won’t link to) mentioning various drivers to install to work around these problems, but I was not going to settle for that.

I don’t have the time and patience to deal with driver issues (that’s why I have a Mac) and I don’t like the thought of downloading drivers from some random web site. So I researched a bit and came across. Reviews said that no drivers needed to be installed manually for Macs and many versions of Windows, as the OS automatically recognized the cable. Taking a $20 risk, I bought the cable and was rewarded with a plug and play experience in OS X 10.10.2 Yosemite. My Mac immediately recognized the cable according to the System Report (Apple Menu –> About this Mac –> System Report –> USB) as shown in this screenshot: Baofeng FTDI USB cable recognized by OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 Now that I had the correct USB cable, I installed the, which according to some posts I read was needed depended on the firmware build installed on the Baofeng UV-5R-2. The daily builds also enable new settings you can program, including setting the Squelch. When I launch CHIRP, I plug the special USB cable into my Baofeng UV-5R-2.

I then select the Radio menu and click on “Download From Radio”: Selecting the download from radio option in CHIRP You are then asked for the basic settings to interface with the radio. Select the Port, which should be a usbserial option or similar (may be named differently depending on what USB cable you use): USB Serial port selection And then select the Vendor and Model of the radio you want to sync. In my case, the UV-5R. Configuring CHIRP to download from the Baofeng UV-5R Then your Mac will download the memory of the Baofeng right into CHIRP, using what it calls “cloning”: CHIRP downloading the UV-5R-2’s configuration Since you may be a new ham (or a long absent ham, like me), you probably don’t know what repeaters are in your local area.