Clone/copy cables - do they work?

[robin252]

I’m looking at eBay item number 223274207642 advertised as a “copy clone cable” to copy the information from one radio (the “master radio”) to another radio (the “slave radio”) and I’m wondering if these actually work?
I have 2 Motorola UHF GP340’s programmed to the same frequencies and would like to copy these settings to a third UHF GP340. Unfortunately the programming cable and software I got don’t seem to work on my Windows 10 laptop.

This “copy clone cable” appears to be the easiest solution to my problem?

[paulears]

Further to the other topic on this subject. Are you certain your radio cloning feature is enabled? Many radios cannot be cloned without it being enabled in the software you cannot run. Try to get the software working - XP, 7, 10 - different computers and one WILL work. Sometimes you just need to re-install the older prolific driver. You’ll find it’s a very, very common problem. Being fair, the Motorola software isn’t usually as finicky - but Windows 10 insists it knows best and I have never found a way yet to remove a driver from it’s library so it doesn’t; automatically update as soon as you shive the uSB in!

[radiotronics]

What @paulears is describing is the “allow clone” feature in the programming software.

We have never been able to get this to work with GP340 (EMEA), GP328 (APAC & ANZ) or HT750 (NA) radios at all as they don’t actually have the “allow clone” feature. This is only possible with a specific radio called GP140. If you do buy one of these cables and can get this to work, please take some screenshots and circle back around to this thread as I’m sure there will be many folks interested in making this work.

[paulears]

I have to admit to thinking it was just me - so that’s actually put my mind at rest that I couldn’t make something work and was too dim to understand. I figured the missing feature was my end!

Odd, because Icom had the clone feature way back - I think my ancient H16 radios from the 80s had that? Paul

[zap_p25]

Can’t say I’ve ever used it with a Waris series radio. I’ve used it with CP200 and CP200XLS (again, cloning has to be enabled on the source). It’s a massive pain on displayless radios but has it’s uses.

As for the CPS not running correctly, that is an issue specific to 64 bit Windows and USB adapters on the Professional CPS (Commercial CPS does not have this issue). If you have a hardware serial port it should work just fine on 64 bit but if using a USB adapter you will either have to buffer it by running a VM on the machine or use a 32 bit version of Windows. There is a specific serial adapter which will work and is what Motorola used but most of the others do not. I’ve always used the IOGear GUC232A as it hasn’t ever had an issue…until I got forced onto a 64 bit machine for work then Astro CPS and Pro CPS had to be funneled through a VM.

[Chris_M1BIK]

Non-specifically to any make/model or defined radio and cables :-

Cables come in three main configurations (not counting connector variations). The simplest (and rare beasts these days) are simple wired ones where a TTL signalling or suchlike uses the cable merely as a medium, all UART functions being contained in host and slave devices. These were common many moons ago and either were TTL level, or were 5v signalled RS232 and a simple binary or plain text exchanged happened. The pure TTL ones usually had a dedicated TTL UART port on the programmer (essentially a JTAG port).

Next up, you’ll find (as was common on many USB and none USB phone cables which terminated device end in many connector types) that the cable had a UART embedded inline that was the device’s external UART to enable the device to talk to the programmer device’s USB/RS232/bidirectional Parallel port.

Those UART embedded types mostly got superceded by USB-USB cables outside of the radio world, in the radio world, a lot became USB->UART to a JTAG style communication on device.

And then you have USB UART enabled devices that use a USB to USB breakout (much like phones) which are mostly identified by a micro USB port on the device - worth noting, the command over the mic/ear sockets (JTAG serial) is still present on such devices, mostly used by cloning cables.

Noting that, none of the above are interchangeable, whatever config the OEM cable uses has to be present, but on the older types, you could just cut and swap the device end wiring or make an inline adapter for.

So the thing is you’ve got to make sure it’s the right kind, and vague makes lists of compatible claims mean nothing.

If the cable supports known series of a given make (and clones, since some radios are mere rehashed OEM devices) of the make you need and you can determine your radio uses the same setup, protocol as well, then it’s probably OK.

I miss the days when cables were simply plugs and wires, rewiring a plug and possibly a level drop resistor made life way easier than finding the right driver, compensating for pattern note fully implemented UART clones and such madness.

But I’m old school.