Hey everyone! It's me, ladyada! I recently got my Amateur Radio License ('HAM ticket') and I wanted to start out with a radio that's both inexpensive, easy to use, and fun to hack! After seeing some videos from CCC about the MD-380, I thought this radio is the one for me to start with.

Not only does this radio do FM analog on the 400MHz band, but it can also do DMR - digital encoded radio! This gives you the ability to use an Internet-backed voice network with no static and huge world-wide repeater reach.

I'm just getting started on my HAM-venture but I thought I'd take some notes on the hacking and programming I've done! Some of it, like updating the Firmware and flashing User DB, is optional - but it's also the most fun!

Tons of credit for all this stuff to Friendly Neighboor Travis & the MD380-Tools team at https://github.com/travisgoodspeed/md380tools, I'm just documenting how I used it under windows!

This guide was first published on May 24, 2016. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on May 22, 2016.

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