RT-880 Channel/Group
Added 2025-08-01 21:17:26 +0000 UTCWow, getting channels and groups going is linked to so many other functions: long presses, SPI storage, input modes (such as text) and the list goes on, I knew this kind of thing would be the case when rewriting things from the ground, but heck, it's quite brutal how much functionality is implicitly interlinked.
Getting close now, but I did want to drop the long press "shift" function. It was too clunky imo. With the 880 you have all buttons (except up and down), including both side buttons and emergency button which can be assigned long press functions, also both side buttons and the emergency button can be assigned short press functions too, so that's 20 user definable "button" functions.
I'm also wanting to include a user menu too. A menu category that the user can populate with favorite menu functions as well as long press functions too if wanted. But that's some time in the future.
In the coming release I have implemented a strategy for the SPI flash wear issue.
The Advanced menu allows you to set a SPI deferral time, this is by default set to 10 seconds. If you don't care about wear leveling too much, you may set this deferral time to something like 2 seconds, this will mean any changes will be quickly written to flash and you won't need to worry about it or bother with the "Shut Down" menu. If however you want to get the most out of the flash chip, you can set the deferral time to 250 (about 4 minutes) and make sure to use the "Shut Down" menu before turning off. A red triangle icon appears on the display when there are any pending flash writes, so never turn off the radio while this triangle is displayed.
Rough back of the envelope usage estimates suggest that daily use, with about 50 writes per day would give you around 5 years of life. So set these options based on your projected use. Think about how many times you will be changing group, changing channel, changing frequency. If you do a lot of scanning, every time the scanner stops to monitor, that will be a write as it's changing the active state of a VFO. So plan ahead a little.
Comments
I'd recommend reading my replies to other comments on this post. I was being a little dramatic in my original claims. I can deal with it.
Marcus Dudley
2025-08-03 10:03:57 +0000 UTCWhat if I'm scanning and I don't want to save the state of the radio when I turn it off. I see the red triangle - would there be a way to clear the pending changes so no write happens ?
Steve Rhoades
2025-08-03 09:39:33 +0000 UTCI was perhaps being a little too alarmist, I can introduce strategies to limit flash wear, after all it's not important that a scan detection VFO change is written to flash when another detection is likely to follow, so simply only write the change once the scan is stopped is perfectly sufficient.
Marcus Dudley
2025-08-02 22:42:12 +0000 UTCThat would suggest that using it primarily as a scanner probably isn't feasible? I could easily have hundreds of scan hits per day - if I've understood what you said, in 6-9 months the flash memory would be at it's rated life, at least on some cells? But I'm assuming this is just as much a problem on any of these cheap radios, not just the 880?
David
2025-08-02 21:31:41 +0000 UTC
