Radio Programming Software...

It’s 2021.

Why does your radio programming software require a windows physical host?

Seriously.

I have to keep two computers (which, alternates between a Thinkbook and a Thinkpad X220T, depending on the radio), that just run Windows 10, and then deal with the maintenance and insanity of that.

Windows isn’t my daily driver. OSX (for work) and Linux (for personal stuff) is. It’s not like I can really just throw my Windows image into a VM and run it that way (looking at you, TYT).

I’m the first person to tell someone that I’m not a windows admin. Never have been, never really will be. I don’t want to turn on my laptop only to get a warning that my OS is out of date and be pushed down a 4GB image to run some piece of crap software that then requires its own update (or even better yet, has a server requirement that is no longer spinning, or, requires an iButton in order to really use)…yet, this is what I’m in for.

I’ve built a WinPE image that has the CPS software for my TYT/Anytone radios, but, I also need to install my “professional radio CPS” software in it as well, and, with the licensing that Kenwood uses for their CPS (admittedly, it also handles enablement for their radios, so I get why they do it, I’m just not happy about it), it means that I won’t be able to include that into my WinPE image…so, I’ll still need to have a laptop to run it (vs creating a WinPE image that I can turn into a Bootable ISO image and just running it on my USB stick when I need it)…which really defeats the purpose of working on it.

Yes, I realize I’m being a grumpy asshole about this…but, honestly, I just want to enjoy radio, not fight my laptops over it. (and before you ask, Chirp only works on the radios that I probably won’t really use – I do like DMR, and, let’s be honest: building your own codeplugs is an art of itself).