Skip Navigation
Mechanica

Icom R5 Programmer

When I read on a yahoo group of the availability of some new R5 Software I was intrigued to know how good it was,after using the Icom cloning software and being spoilt by the Butel arc 780 software I had to know how well this new software would fare, whether it offered more features or was just an alternative to the existing R5 software.

I sent an email off to the producers of the R5 programmer software asking to review it on this site, and in all fairness there was no hesitation in providing me with a copy for reviewing. This lack of hesitation instills confidence in their product, they knew that I had reviewed Butel software and were not afraid to be pitted with the big boys.

after setting the software up (Very easy no problems here on win xp pro) a quick look showed that it had all the features of the Icom CS-R5 software but with a totally different look about it. Looking at the screen shot below you can see two buttons one for up and one for down. To use this feature you just click on a channel and then click up or down and it will instantly swap channels with the adjacent channel. This is a feature I liked about the ARC software and is a welcome feature here also. All the other settings are accessible mainly from drop down menus such as the CTCSS/DCS settings, Mode etc.

Channel/Bank allocations are accessed via the two windows to the left of "Assigned to this bank and Channel number" The bank being a drop down menu and the ch number for you to type in manually.

 

First thing I wanted to try was loading my current settings from the radio to the software. To do this you click on the Read/Write button then select the cable you are using for the interface then click read from radio, at this point a message will remind you that you must be in clone mode, to do this you must hold down the v/m button whilst powering up, the R5 will now display "CLONE" and is ready. Click ok select a name for your saved file you will now see a progress meter and binary numbers whilst the data is written. When this ceases click close window button now click the Load IC5 FILE button, select your saved file from the pop up window and presto! All your data is there.

 

Screen shot showing the progression of the data being read, to the left a blue progress bar, to the right all the binary data.

Once you have all your data you can now edit it to your hearts content in the frequency editor (Note I was a little dismayed to find that you can't enter any data into the software from scratch i.e. you have to load some data from your scanner into the software programme first. If you try to save a file without first uploading some data you will be met with an error message!) For the purposes of this review I decided to make a file containing all the known frequencies used at Rockingham for the NASCAR racing.

It must be noted that during this review I hit on a few snags with the software, some were errors that no one else had encountered and some were down to my ignorance. All it required was an email to the producers of the software and all problems were ironed out almost immediately to the point now where I hit no snags whatsoever, I really do take my hat off to the producers of this software as my emails were nearly always answered immediately and considering the difference in time scales for our different countries tells me that this bloke sits up for hours getting the software tweaked to perfection. Since my many emails and gripes the software has been updated numerous times and is now in the 2.3.1 version at the time of writing. With the later versions you can now move channels up/down, import/export files including R2 files. Just to prove the progress of the software, I had just finished typing the last statement when I was informed of another update, giving control over the bank channel allocations, the software will now sort them into the correct ascending order, if you have a fair few memories in your scanner you can see this all taking place, very neat! Use the Bank tab to reach the Bank Manager. The Bank Manager re-sorts the
channels and frequencies by Banks. This makes bank management easy. You can
add to any bank by changing any available channel to the desired settings
and bank letter. You can edit information here exactly like you do in
the main frequency editor screen. After changing Bank or Bank-Channel
information re-sort to place it in the proper location. From the bank manager you can also quickly check for any channel allocation duplicates.

Sort in order

Under the Bank Management screen you can also sort by frequency. This is useful
if you want to export an in-order list of frequencies or for other analysis.
Resorting by frequency can take a long time depending on how many frequencies
you have and how out of order they are and your computer speed. Check the
checkbox to reverse the frequency sort order(highest to lowest). Zero
frequencies are always pushed to the bottom of the list. This was a feature I requested and within two days it was done, I along with many other users no doubt, will be using this feature for analysis of stored frequencies. Also the help file states it could take some time, well I found the time it took was a matter of seconds and I have loads of frequencies loaded into memory.

Duplicates

You can search for duplicate frequencies. This allows you to check for the
same frequency entered twice. There are reasons to enter the same frequency
twice, for example in two different banks for two different areas or for
two different ctcss tones. This feature finds duplicate frequencies
and lets you decide if you want to change them or not. Again another handy feature, why use up memories on the same frequency? This would take forever without the software.

Frequency Fill
This feature allows you to fill a series of channels with sequential
frequencies. Select the information desired for all channels. Select the Start
Frequency. Select the frequency step between each channel. Select the number of
Channels you want to be filled. Select the first channel0-999 that you want to
begin the new data. Press the Fill button.
Example: Suppose you want to enter all frequencies 155.000, 155.0125, 155.025...
Instead of entering them manually you can use the frequency fill
feature to start at frequency 155.000 and step every 12.5 mhz, starting at
channel 100 for the next 100 channels. You can also assign all of these
frequencies to a single bank(Banks are limited to 100 channels each).

New Features:
Import comma delimited frequency lists
Export full frequency data for excel analysis
Frequency Fill Feature - Fill a range of channels with sequential frequencies. Select a start frequency, a step, the start channel and the number of channels you want
Now supports international comma format(155,000) vs US period(155.000) number format for frequency entry.
Percon compatibility with IC-R2 format and future compatibility when IC-R5 format is added to the Percon database.
IC-R2 type ICF file Import capability ICF Format Files
This software will import .icf format files made FROM THE IC-R5.
This software is not compatible with older .icf format files for the IC-R2
or other models.To import an IC-R2 format .icf file first load any .ic5 file to unlock the
menus. Then select Import IC-R2 ICF and select the file. All available
frequencies and features are loaded.
Import icf files for the IC-R5 created by CS-R5
Blank out frequencies without erasing them
Recover frequencies lost by CLEAR. Restore cleared memory: When the scanner's memory is cleared it is not actually
wiped out. The channels are all set to be Blanked out and the first two channels
of the first two banks are set to default values. The rest of the channels
are still there but hidden.
Using this software you can restore these by loading an image of the memory
and changing the status from Blanked to another option under the Skip/Scan
drop down box
Re-arrange columns to change the order to your preferences
Supports CT-29a, OPC-478/U cables

 

Another feature I like is the option to change the font size from large to small it defaults at small but I found personally I prefer it set at large, this would be ideal for someone that has not got the best of eyesight.

I was keen to try out the exporting and importing of CDF (comma delimited files) and so I clicked on the Export selection from the drop down menu and was met with a pop up button asking if I wanted to save as a comma delimited file so that it could be opened in excel, this I duelly did and indeed opened it up in excel and there was all my settings in a spreadsheet! It is also possible to import a CDF file. With the capability to copy and paste (Unlike other R5 software at the time of writing) this makes this software stand out from any other software available for the R5

Wish list

Also when I edit a file it would be nice to just file/save rather than save a file and select the file I want to update, the reason being with the current set up I mistakenly selected the wrong file and completely over wrote it.

Also I would like to be able to copy a whole bank and paste it in. This would come in handy as I travel between My City and another in the course of my work and If I have my city contents loaded it becomes useless 20 miles away when I am in the other City. At the moment I have a file for each one, I think it would be much better to just have the both in one but I don't fancy taking the time to re-write a new file with all those frequencies which run into quite a few hundred. It is however possible to copy/paste a line of information.

I feel that the adding of new files issue needs to be sorted as the main reason anyone will be buying this software is because of the damn difficulty of programming the R5 manually, so it would be great to have a new scanner and software and just type all the information in rather than struggling away with the R5 manual. ( I have addressed this to the author of the software and he is looking into it for the next release.)

I must say that when I first started using this software I hated it, I found other software much easier and reliable, but in the last week or two this software has come on in leaps and bounds to the point that I would truly miss it. I no longer use the software that I used to use. I have spent endless hours adding and taking away information and uploading to my R5, any excuse to use the software. So now the question most have you have all been waiting for... How does it compare to the competition? If you asked me this question this time last week I would have hesitated, I didn't think this software was reliable enough due to the snags I was getting. Ask me that same question now and I would say without hesitation, go to
ic-r5.com pay your money and download a great bit of kit, regularly updated. I know I could no longer be without it!