Copyright: ©2005 RT Systems
Citation: ©2005 RT Systems


Import
Import - Overview

The Programmer can Import data from delimited text files.  These files can be created using the Export feature of the Programmer for another radio, Travel Plus for Repeaters by ARRL, commercial spreadsheet programs, or text editors.

Creating a data file for radio programming in a commercial spreadsheet program has some advantages.  In the spreadsheet, you can make global changes more easily, and can cut and paste one cell for more specific changes.

While the spreadsheet application has advantages, it also has limitations.

1)  The spreadsheet program will know none of the limitations of the radio.  It will allow you to enter any value in any space.  You will have to enter transmit and receive frequencies and CTCSS tone frequencies carefully to be sure they are imported correctly to the radio.

2)  You need to organize your data carefully.  The Programmer will import all the items from a single column as the same thing. This can cause an odd split to be entered as Simplex or a non-standard offset to be ignored.

The easiest way to begin a text file for your Programmer is to Export a file from the Programmer first.  In that exported file, you will see column headers for the details that the Programmer expects to import.  You will also see the format of the information.  You can edit or add to this file with any commercial spreadsheet program or text editor.

The file to be imported can contain only the Receive frequency to defne a valid memory channel.  The Programmer makes no assumptions about the information available.  If a piece of information is omitted, the Programmer imports the memory as a simplex channel and fills other fields with defaults.

Although this process is very valid for transferring data from one radio Programmer to another and for using the data from other sources such as ARRL Travel Plus, it is not recommended for original file creation.  It can be tedious getting all the information into the file to be imported just like the Programmer wants it.  Let the Programmer help you as you create your original file with its defaults and automatic settings.  Once the file is created you could export the data for other uses.


Import Function - Step 1
Import Function – Step 1

In the Programmer select File | Import.

From the Import Radio File dialog that opens, select the file to be opened.

This screen given you the ability to find and open the file that you re importing.

Use "Look in:"  at the top to change directories as needed

Use "File of type:" at the bottom to show other files in the directory you selected.  Since the most common file types are *.csv and *.tab you may need to change types for your file to appear.

Once your file is highlighted, select Open to proceed.

Import Step 1 of 4:  Identify one or more of the first rows of data to be omitted.

This screen was used originally to omit headers, columns without data, from the import.  This is no longer necessary. Actually, it is recommended that you leave the headers to help you more easily identify the information in a later step.

This step remains useful for eliminating a large number of memory channels from the import process. For example if your file contains more channels than are allowed by the radio.  You could eliminate multiple channels here rather than later in the import process.

Click Next to continue.


Creating a file for import

Creating data file for radio programming in a commercial spreadsheet program has some advantages.  In the spreadsheet, you can make global changes more easily, and can cut and paste one cell for more specific changes.

While the spreadsheet application has advantages, it also has limitations.

1)	The spreadsheet program will know none of the limitations of the radio.  It will allow you to enter any value in any space.  You will have to carefully enter transmit and receive frequencies, CTCSS tones, and DCS codes carefully to be sure they are imported correctly to the radio.

2)	You need to organize your data carefully.  The Programmer will import all the items from a single column as the same thing. This can cause an odd split to be entered as Simplex or a non-standard offset to be ignored.

The Import function is designed to assimilate some if not all of the following pieces of information for use by the Programmer. As radio features vary, so will the information to be imported.

Channel Number:  Although the channel number is not imported into the radio file, it can accompany the channel information throughout the process.  This information helps to organize the information being imported.

Receive Frequency:  Enter a receive frequency for the memory channel.  Acceptable receive frequencies are detailed in your User's Manual for the radio. In the text file, the frequency should be entered in the format MHz decimal kHz (i.e., 146.450) with up to five digits following the decimal.

Although, unacceptable frequencies can be entered into the text file, they will not be imported into the Programmer.  They will result in a blank memory channel when import is completed.

Transmit Frequency:  Enter a specific transmit frequency in the format MHz decimal kHz (i.e., 146.450) with up to five digits following the decimal.

When constructing the text file, the Transmit Frequency needs to be specified only for an Odd Split pair.  Otherwise, the Programmer can calculate this frequency during import based on Offset Frequency and Offset Direction.

Acceptable transmit frequencies are 144 detailed in the manual for your radio.

Note:  In the Programmer you can enter details for frequencies outside the transmission abilities of the radio.  However, the software will not enable transmission on these frequencies.  Transmission will be possible only if the radio has been properly modified.

Offset Frequency:  Standard offsets in include 100, 500, and 600 kHz and 1.0, 1.6, 3.0, 5.0, and 7.6 MHz.   The Offset Frequency is used by the Programmer along with the Offset Direction to calculate the Transmit Frequency

This is one place that the import process will make an assumption for you.  It uses 600 kHz for the offset for VHF and 5 MHz for the offset for UHF if no other is specified.

Non-Standard Offsets

The Offset Frequency can be used in conjunction with Offset Direction for  a value in 5 kHz steps (i.e., any value ending in .xx5 where x is any digit from 0 to 9).  This gives you the ability to use the Reverse function of the radio although your frequency pair is not separated by a standard offset value.   This is considered a non-standard offset.

To use a non-standard offset in your text file enter the Receive Frequency.  Then the Offset Frequency as an exact value including the decimal to denote kHz.  For example, given the pair 146.650 and 147.300, the Offset Frequency entered would be .650 (decimal – six – five – zero).  And the Offset Direction as Plus or Minus.  With these three pieces of information, the import process will setup this memory channel correctly for use by the radio with the most functionality.

Note:  You may see this import with one of the standard Offset Frequencies; however, once the file is saved, closed and reopened, the Plus or Minus and the Offset Frequency value as entered will appear.

Offset Direction:  The Offset Direction lets the Import process know whether to add (plus) or subtract (minus) the Offset Frequency from the Receive Frequency when calculating the Transmit Frequency for the memory channel.

Enter Plus, Minus, + or - for the process to recognize the command.

NOTE:  Be sure to use Offset Direction if your file contains + and – in this column.  Using Offset Frequency for this column will result in all channels being imported as simplex.

Operating Mode:  Enter FM, AM, or WFM as appropriate for the frequency.

Name:  Enter an Alpha/Numeric tag (up to 8 characters) for the memory channel to provide an easy reminder of the function of a particular frequency.   Not all radios have this available for each memory channel.  Consult your Users’ Manual for details.

Tone Mode: Use of the tone systems of the radio allows for silent monitoring until a call is received with a corresponding tone.  Tone mode also allows access to repeaters that are made private with a PL tone.  Most radios offer CTCSS (Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System) or DCS (Digital Coded Squelch) to be tailored to your particular needs.  Consult your Users’ Manual for details specific  to your model.

Use of either of the tone systems requires two steps:

1) Turning on the Tone Mode with the Tone Mode setting and

2) Selecting the CTCSS tone or DCS code to be used by the radio with the selections in the next two columns.

Step 1:  Turning on Tone Mode

There are now so many different tone modes and combinations of them, we recommend that you use the letter designation just as it appears in the Programmer for your radio to identify the Tone Mode to be used.  Examples would include but not be limited to:

None – Tone mode off

Tone – Encode

T Sql – Encode/Decode

DCS – DCS Tone

Others appear in the list.  Details of their use can be found in the help for the specific Programmer or in your Users’ Manual.

CTCSS Tone: Enter one of the 50 tone frequencies in the format MHz decimal kHz with only one digit to the right of the decimal.

This value must be entered exactly as shown in the chart in the Users Manual.  A value that is not in the table will result in an incorrect tone value setting in the resulting Programming file.

This value is set independently for each memory channel.

DCS Code: Enter one of the 104 codes in a three digit format (This will appear as two digits if you editor does not show leading zeroes.  Two digits are acceptable when the third is a leading zero).

This value must be entered exactly as shown in the chart in the Users Manual.

A value that is not in the table will result in an incorrect tone value setting.

This value is set independently for each memory channel.

Skip:  Marks selected memory channel to be skipped during scanning   This field should contain one of the following:

Scan, 0, or Stop to include the channel to be scanned

Skip or 1 to mark the channel to be skipped.

PScan or 2 to mark the channel as Preferential Scan

Step:  The frequency being used by the radio changes by the value of the step when tuning manually.  This value is used by the radio in Memory Tune mode. This value is not critical in memory mode since the original memory channel frequency can be retrieved by exiting Memory Tune mode.

Enter 5/10/12.5/15/20/25/50 or 100 as needed.

Clock Shift:  Shifts the internal reference frequency slightly to eliminate "birdies" that interfere on other channels.

Enter On or 1 /  Off or 0

Tx Power: The output power can be set individually set for each memory channel to address the exact needs of each operation.

Enter  High /  Med / Low

Half Deviation:  Enter On or Off  as needed for the channel

Comments: Enter an identifying comment up to 30 characters.

You can see by the details here that creating a file for import can be a tedious process.  Although this process is very valid for transferring data from one radio Programmer to another and for using the data from other sources such as ARRL Travel Plus, it is not recommended for original file creation.

Let the Programmer help you as you create your original file with its defaults and automatic settings.  Once the file is created you could export the data for other uses.

The comma-delimited file can contain this information in any order.  It must contain only the Receive frequency to be a valid memory channel.  The Programmer makes no assumptions about the information available.  If a piece of information is omitted, the Programmer imports the memory as a simplex channel and fills other fields with defaults.

This data can be entered in any order.  You will identify the specifics to the Programmer during the Import process.   If you find after several entries that you need another column for additional information, simply add it at the end.  The Programmer will correct the order when it imports.

Save the data in your file often to prevent loss.  Be sure to save the file as text with delimiters (separators) rather than as a worksheet of the program in which you are working.  The Programmer cannot use a worksheet created by the other program.

To save as a text file, select File | Save (in the spreadsheet program).  In the Save file window, select a different file type from the selection at the bottom of the screen.  Acceptable formats are those that specify "Text & ___" (i.e., .cvs, or .txt file extension).

Exit the spreadsheet program.  Your file is ready to be imported into the Programmer.  Changes can be made within the Programmer after you import the data.


Import Function - Step 2

Import Step 2 of 4:  Identify the delimiters (separators) used in your file.

The data in the file to be imported is separated by tabs, semicolons, commas, space or other non-text characters.  Select from the list at the top of the screen or enter the one you used.

Once you select the correct delimiter, the data will properly separate into columns.

Examine the data to be sure that it is ready for the Programmer to process.  Look at the data in the window.  Select the proper Text Qualifier if you have single or double quotes within a data field.  With quotes present, the import process will handle all the data incorrectly resulting in a blank file.  Once selected, the quotes are removed and the data appears as shown.

Click Next to continue.


Import Function - Step 3

Import Step 3 of 4:  Identify the data to the Programmer.

The Programmer will make an attempt to identify the information in your file based on the headers in the file.  In this step of the process, you can make corrections to the assignments the Programmer has made and identify other columns that you want imported.

For the columns to be imported, select the header of the column then select the proper identifier from the drop down list at the top of the screen.

You need to identify only those columns to be imported.

Click Next to continue.


Import Function - Step 4

Import Step 4 of 4: Limit the channels that are imported by the Programmer.  Again, you can make adjustments to the data to be imported without having to edit the original file.  Select all or any part of the list by checking the box at the left of the screen.

Since the data can be imported into an existing file, use the boxes at the top of the screen to identify place the data in the file where you want it to appear.

The Starting radio memory box lets you insert the channels into the file somewhere other than at the beginning (i.e., At the end of a list that has the last channel of 21. Enter 22 in this box to begin with the next memory channel of that file).

The Overwrite existing channels tells the process to replace data it finds in the existing file or to skip that data and write in the next available channel.  For example:

Unchecked  - If you import into a file with memories in channel numbers 1-10, 12, 15 and 16 the process would write the imported channels in order to 11, 13, 14, then 17 on to the end of the imported list.

Checked – If you import to a file with memories in channel numbers 1-10, 12, 15 and 16 the process would write the imported channels in order beginning at channel 1and continue in order to the end of the imported list.  The existing channel data of the file would be lost in the process as it is replaced with that of the imported file.

Click Finish to compete the process.   The resulting file in this example would look like this:


An ASCII file can be created from the ARRL Travel Plus electronic repeater directory for import into the Programmer.  To create this file:

1)	Install and start Travel Plus

2)	From the opening screen, select either "Maps and Route Tracing" or "Repeater Database Access" to begin creating of a repeater list to suite your requirements.

3)	Once you have created a frequency list (the list will appear in a box at the center of the screen), select File from the menu at the top of this screen.  This list dose not need to be exact.  You will be given the opportunity to edit the list during the import process.

4)	In the File menu select Export.

5)	Enter a filename. (You might want to make a note of or change the directory where the file is being saved.  This will make it easier to find the file later.)

6)	Exit Travel Plus.  You do not need to save the repeater list unless you think you might need it later.

This file is ready to be imported into the Programmer.  There will be several pieces of data that are not used by the radio.  Simply mark these to "Ignore" on the appropriate screen of the import process.

Go to Using the Import Function for details about the Programmer’s part of the process.