I just bought a pair of the above mentioned radios and tried to make their usage legal by programming them to PMR 446 frequencies. But after programming them with Miklor 1.5 they do not work. Does anybody have a PMR 446 program file with .480 extention for Baofeng BF-888S that works? I would appreciate receiving one. 
When you say “does not work” I take it you mean they just stay silent?
You could have messed up the entering of data, but what happens when you read from the radios? Does the screen show the data you entered? Or does the read fail? Usually I always try a read first because if that fails, no harm done. Writing data first with a mistake or even worse, the wrong software, can kill radios.
Tell us exactly what is happening. Does it read, does it not read, do you get comm errors, anything that will help us work out what you have done.
Hi there,
First of all, thank you for your response. So I can read and write the radio programme. I use MIKLOR 1.5. My problem is that I set the frequency band to 400-470, I set the PMR 446 frequencies and when I upload the program to the radios, on the channels where I have set the encoding the remote station just buzzes when transmitting, and where I have not set the encoding there is no reaction. I found a program that someone made for himself and half of it contains PMR446 frequencies. I uploaded it and miracle of miracles it works, but what I don’t understand is how they could program PMR 446 frequencies with the frequency band set to VHF2 (245-246Mhz) in the program. By the way, I have seen such a trick with the factory setting. To illustrate, I upload my own (not working) program called Baofeng recovery PMR 3 and the one that works (Baofeng recovery 2019) , but it contains eight frequencies that are not free/legal in our country. Do you have any tips on how I can make a working program or what I might have done wrong.
Sorry I coud not upload the .480 extention files so I uploaded one sreen print, the not working one.
Thank you for any kind of help in advance.
Best regards,
Zoli
The band 2 frequencies shouldn’t accept 440MHz - So you have two codeplugs - one has PMR446 only with 16chs and various signalling and the other has 70cm ham frequencies and PMR446. Only one works? Can you not get the working one and just enter the frequencies you want? I think I must be missing something. Nothing wrong with the contents of either, within the radio’s spec - but the Band 2 version isn’t normally imported to the UK as we do not have that band. No errors I can see with the parameters entered - just the band thing.
Hi,
Thank you for your reaction. Unfortunately I am a bit confused and don’t understand it either. I tried several times programming the PMR frequencies and in principle there was no error yet it didn’t work. I remain baffled.
Best regards,
Z
If i understand it correctly, you have a working codeplug that has 8 ham band channels you cannot use, and 8 you can use but they are not what you want. Can you not just write new frequencies into the 8 ham slots, leave everything else the same, and write those to the two radios? Save this to a new file name and save it. If you then read it back from the radio, are those new frequencies in the radio? What is confusing me is that even if the band setting is odd, but it works, what exactly is the issue? If you have just one version that enables communication on legal frequencies, the can you not concentrate on that one and expand that rather than spend time on the codeplugs that dont work? There could be just one corrupted bit of data you cannot see, that is messing it up. Editing the working one, making sure you do not lose it, with sensible renaming of the file is your sensible way forward. We cannot see an error on the visible display, therefore if it doesnt work, it has an unfixable issue. The one that makes radios transmit and receive, surely is the only one to now mess with?
Hi,
Actually I can use the radio with the current program, because I have 8 frequencies PMR446. The reason I posted in the topic is why I can’t write a program that works and how it is that other people have made programs that work (e.g. the factory one and the one I just installed), but I can’t rewrite them because the frequencies in the program don’t match the frequency band I have specified above and when I try to rewrite them, I can only enter frequencies that match the frequency band. And if I change the frequency band, it deletes all the frequencies I have entered so far…
Regards,
Z
It still does not make your radio “legal”. Your government must certify radios used on PMR-446. I doubt an amateur radio has that certification.
I’m really sorry - but I am now more confused than I was before. Please confirm these points.
You CAN write data to the radio that receives and transmits.
You CAN use this working codeplug and replace some fequencies with others.
The band seems to be a red herring - the radio has 430-440MHz frequencies AND 440-450MHz ? You can tx and RX on the ham band AND the PMR446 frequencies?
What I don’t get is that if you can read and write - then just entering new data and not touching the band drop down, should work? I am assuming you have tried this, and for some reason new data entered does not work?
It’s very important you explain exactly the process you are doing .
You can read the radio and see the frequencies? Can you then write them back OK, but you cannot if you change them? See how I am confused. All I know is it doesn’t work, but I don’t know what doesn’t work. You originally mentioned strange noises? Maybe a video would speak a thousand words?
So, I can read the radio and I can upload a program to it. So far so good. However, if I write a new program to it, even though there is supposed to be no error in the program, I can’t use the radio as intended, because if I press the transmit button on one of them, the other one just buzzes and I can’t get the sound to pass. This happens when I encrypt the channel. If I don’t encrypt it, it doesn’t work anyway, it just doesn’t even buzz.
The odd thing is that both the factory program and the one I downloaded from elsewhere have the frequency band set to 245-246Mhz, but the individual frequencies I have specified do not fall into this band. Now this is not worth it. And when I try to enter a frequency within the running program, it only allows me to enter the specified frequencies 245-246Mhz. If I change the frequency band to 400-470 then all the frequencies entered before are deleted and if I re-enter the PMR frequencies then the above mentioned phenomenon occurs. Anyway, now I can use the radio on 8 channels so that it is quasi legal.
Thanks for all responses.
Regards,
Z
Hi,
I have exactly the same issue.
I have a batch of older BF-888S (with a blue sticker with the letter K) and a batch of newer ones with a white sticker with letter N.
The old ones where delivered preprogrammed with PMR446 frequencys. The newer with FRS frequencys.
If i download from the old one and put it in the new one. The new ones can transmit but cant receive.
Very strange. Tried different methods. If i make a new .480 file with exactly the same frequencies in both radios i get the buzzing issue like described by TS.
Any one a idea?
I guess it’s just the territory restrictions again.I guess the American ones are locked down to prevent out of band use, per their new rules.