Programming the Leixen VV-898 FM Transceiver

Having recently earned my ticket, I am still investigating (read: listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of blogs) the various options for single-band, multi-band, DX, repeater access, and digital modes, such as packet, PSK31, D-STAR from Icom, System Fusion from Yaesu, NEXEDGE from Kenwood, and on and on. With so many options for capabilities and features on radios, and so little knowledge about which ones I want and need, I decided that an appropriate entry point was a real mobile transceiver for VHF/UHF communication on the trail, which is why I got my license to begin with.

I do not intend to encourage or participate in a religious argument about Chinese versus Japanese radios, or brand fanboi arguments. I bucked the trend of purchasing the cheapest $30 Baofeng HT, even though there are good reasons for owning one, and I will have one with spare batteries in the back of the truck at some point. I picked up a Leixen VV-898 (www.leixen.com) which comes in a tiny form factor at 120mm × 90mm × 40mm, and has a number of useful features, but is still a basic dual-band transceiver. This unit, like most Chinese radios, is sold as a number of makes and models. Specifically, it is a dual-band 2m and 70cm transceiver that has 4w/10w selectable power, an internal speaker, a microphone installed keypad, macro functions, 199 programmable channels, will tune commercial FM (RX only), has an emergency auto-transmit mode, comes with a USB programming cable, and is supported in CHIRP (chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home). All for well under $100. Bam.

This post is more about programming the unit, than a hardware review, which I am not really skilled at anyway. This unit comes with the programming cable, which is a must since the controls are less than user friendly, and it does not have a large VXO knob. I am on the fence a little about this, as I like the control offered by the VXO, but that is probably not that easy to use while bumping down the trail. I like the idea of having the most used channels available by voice command or keypad access. This is actually important in the context of programming. Due to the form factor of this unit, programming from the front panel or keypad, while possible, is not really practical. Therefore, programming via PC or smart phone, and then uploading to a transceiver via cable or bluetooth, is the ideal programming model, in my opinion. This unit offers programming via cable, using software available on Windows, Mac, or Linux platforms. My ham radio computer is an Ubuntu 14.04.3 laptop, dedicated to amateur radio applications. I will discuss programming using Chirp on Linux.

Programming the VV-898 occurs in four steps: downloading the image from the radio into Chirp, setting up the program for channel presets and radio behavior, saving the image to disk (optional, but convenient for iterative programming), and finally uploading the image to the radio. The manual for this radio, incidentally, is in fine Chinglish. Politically correct or not, that is a fact, and makes the manual entertaining, if not entirely useful.

To install Chirp, it is important to understand if your radio is supported or not, and under which version. Most of the popular vendors, such as Kenwood, Icom, and Yaesu, have comprehensive and long-term support in the main branch of the application, but some of the more obscure, and particularly some of the Chinese vendors, have more sparse support. The Leixen VV-898, I learned through googling the universe, is supported in the daily build branch of the CHIRP software. To install the application from the daily build branch, I had to uninstall the version from the Ubuntu Apt repository, set up the new repository, and install the daily build version:

root@ham-ubuntu:~# aptitude remove -y chirp

root@ham-ubuntu:~# sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dansmith/chirp-snapshots

root@ham-ubuntu:~# sudo aptitude install -y chirp-daily

To program the unit, I connect the radio to my Audiotek 5A regulated AC-DC power supply (amazon.com/Audiotek-Output-Mobile-Supply-AT-PS5/dp/B00DERJLBK), which is a must if you have a mobile unit - don't try to do this in your car in the dark in the cold in the winter - unless you like that sort of thing. Besides that, if you have a power supply, and a dipole antenna, then you can set up a home base station with the same radio, which is pretty nifty. To continue, I then connect the programming cable from a USB port on the laptop to the microphone jack on the radio.

To enable writing to the USB device (/dev/ttyUSB0, owner root:dialout, permissions 0660), you must add read/write access to the USB device to your user, so either (a) run chirp as root using sudo, or (b) add your user to the dialout group, or (c) chmod 0666 /dev/ttyUSB0 to add world read/write access to the USB port. If you are the only user of the system, as I am, it frankly does not matter which method you use. If it is a multi-user system, then you may want to use (a) or (b).

I power on the power supply and the radio, and then launch chirp (sudo /usr/bin/chirpw), which is highly anti-climatic with a blank screen. Pull down the Radio -> Download From Radio menu option and you will be prompted for the port (/dev/ttyUSB0), vendor (Leixen), and model (VV-898).

Provided you have all the stars lined up, the radio will chirp at you with the power on tone sequence, and the image will be downloaded into the application memory of chirp and displayed in the editor.

Bully! Now you have control over radio and control panel behavior, all the channel memory presets, and options for those channel presets: Location, Frequency, Name, Tone Mode, Tone, ToneSql, DTCS Code, DTCS Rx Code, DTCS Pol, Cross Mode, Duplex, Offset, Mode, and Power.

There are two main categories of programming displayed as tabs on the left side of the screen: Memories and Settings. Memories are for channel presets, and settings are for general radio and control panel behavior.

To provide an example of adding a new channel preset, I am going to use the local NOAA weather channel, WXJ-34, 162.400 MHz. I am going to set the Location (3), Frequency (162.400), Name (WXJ-34 (NOAA)), Mode (FM), and Power (Low) fields.

To change settings, I choose the settings tab on the left side, and modify settings and function buttons P1, P2, and P3 for short and long button presses, so the radio does what I want. Obvious things to consider changing are the timeouts for various things like button presses, as well as the startup messages to display your call sign, or the time, and setting the P1, P2, and P3 buttons to scan programmed channels, to perform the emergency mode send, and 
change the transmission power.

To upload to the radio, I am going to save the current image first, so I can modify and upload it repeatedly. Go to File -> Save as and choose a useful file name and location. Then go to Radio -> Upload to Radio and the image will be uploaded to the radio and the power on chirp sequence will be heard if successful. I then close chirp, disconnect the programming cable and reconnect the microphone cable to control the radio.

I will post again and discuss more detail about operation of the radio.

Cheers!
KG5KXO