Baofeng Programming Cable for BAOFENG UV-5R/5RA/5R Plus/5RE, UV3R Plus, BF-888S, 5R EX, 5RX3, GA-2S

I had very little trouble getting this cable to work. Had I heeded the advice to toss the included CD and download everything from miklor dot com (or the CHIRP site) I would have had less trouble.NOTE: For those of you who are familiar with serial communications (and perhaps some that are not) it may help to know that the cable is just a USB to Serial adapter. The driver install is all about the cable, NOT the radio. You do not need to use the radio while you are getting the cable installed and working. The CHIRP software will handle the communications to the radio once the cable is working. If you install the cable driver and the cable is plugged in, look in Device Manager. If you do NOT have a yellow triangle (or any other warning) on the Prolific USB to Serial port in Device Manager, you SHOULD be good to go.Here's the short version for the ADD folks ;-)Toss the included CD, download the Prolific driver from Miklor dot com, install the driver and plug in the cable. Make a note of what COM port is assigned to the cable. Download the latest daily build of CHIRP. Enjoy!Here's the details of what I did. This may help some of you who tried the included CD first like I did.(just in case you don't know... you can open up Device Manager by right clicking on Computer and then opening Device Manager)1. I tried installing the Vista driver from the included CD which included plugging the cable into the laptop and radio. It failed (yellow triangle in Device Manager).2. I installed the latest daily build of CHIRP (this didn't help my cable problem, but it didn't hurt anything either). If I was doing this all over again I would probably wait until the cable was working before I installed CHIRP. I really don't think it matters much when you install CHIRP.3. I removed the driver from Device Manager, I checked the Uninstall Driver box.(I would recommend you skip steps 1 & 3)4. I un-plugged the cable from the radio and the laptop.5. I downloaded the Prolific 3.2.0.0 driver from Miklor.6. I installed the Prolific 3.2.0.0 driver.7. I plugged the cable into the laptop, Windows recognized it and installed the device (cable) successfully.(BTW: it assigned COM5 to the cable, you will need to know this later)8. I opened up CHIRP.9. With the radio turned off I plugged the cable into the radio.10. I turned on the radio.11. I downloaded the data from the radio (Radio --> Download from radio). I got a dialog box asking for settings. I set the COM Port to match the cable (COM5). I set the Vendor to Baofeng and the Model to UV5R and clicked OK.12. I got the Cloning Progress box with progress bar. When that was done I got the CHIRP spreadsheet view. I was able to edit the config and Save it as a file. (I saved a backup of the default config before I made any changes).13. I uploaded the data back to the radio (Radio --> Upload to radio).14. I got the Cloning Progress box again. When that was done I unplugged the radio.That's it!BTW: I tried the Import from Repeater Book and I was impressed at how well it worked. I recommend trying that.

I was a little skeptical after hearing about driver issues with some cables but this one worked perfectly right out of the bag with my Surface laptop running Windows 10.

Perfect fit and function. I used this with ( Chirp ) software and it was spot on. a must have for those chinese radios.

I plugged the cable into my Dell desktop PC and it installed drivers on its own, no need to mess with anything. It was plug & play. However, the next day, the plastic housing at the USB end of the cable fell apart, both halves of the plastic cover on the cable came off and hit the floor, and the USB wires and circuit board were visible. I had to use tiny drops of super glue on the pins on the housing and glue it back together. It still works fine but didn't seem to be the best quality as it just fell apart, I wasn't even touching the cable at the time! Other than that, no issues, installed easily and worked great to download & upload from my radio.

I originally bought this cable to program my POFUNG GT-1, Baofeng Pofung GT-1 UHF 400-470MHz FM Two-way Ham Radio, 16 Channels, 1800mAh Battery (Orange) a 16 Channel UHF handie-talkie that literally can not operate at all without this adapter to program the frequencies using your PC. I used the stock software that came with the GT-1 and had no problem getting the hardware (cable & radio) detected using Windows 7.0 Professional 64-Bit. However, I was not able to get the hardware to detect using Windows 8.1 Professional 64-Bit version. I was also unable to get the software to load AT ALL on Windows 7.0 using XP compatibility mode, so I will assume that this hardware does not work with Windows XP, either. Oddly, the software does mention supporting Windows VISTA. Go figure.Unlike some reviewers here, I had no problem getting the connector to "fit" with the radio. Everything seemed to fit snugly. The USB end of the cable is a tad large though, so I wouldn't plan on plugging any other USB devices right next to it. I'm not quite sure why the USB end of the connector is so large. It seems like a poor design.Much like it's radios, this Baofeng/Pofung patch cable is rather cheap. It does exactly what it is supposed to do though and for $7 (approx current price) you really don't have much to lose. It isn't something that you will likely use on a regular basis, so wear and tear on the cable should be minimal. Baofeng has always been know for their incredibly cheap two-way radios. If you already have one, getting this cable is a no-brainer. William Van Hefner, KB6VWL

As advertised good quality thanks

Works great, but you will need to download and install the programming software called "Chirp". It works great, but, last known info, only works up through Windows 10. Do not know if a Windows 11 version is being developed or not. Would be nice if there was a version for Mac as well but also not yet.