📻 Chirp Next & Local Repeater Listings

Looking to streamline your radio programming? Chirp Next is a powerful tool for managing frequencies on Chirp-compatible radios. Click here to visit their website and download the latest daily version.

📍 Local Focus: East Central Indiana & Beyond

Since this site originates in Decatur, Indiana, we’ve prioritized repeaters within range of our station—those that can be confirmed locally. That said, we’ve made many exceptions to include useful listings from surrounding areas.

We’re especially looking to expand coverage in Marion County (Indianapolis) and nearby regions. If you have a confirmed repeater listing—not just a RepeaterBook entry—we’d love to include it.

📬 Help Us Keep It Accurate

If you know of a repeater that’s:

• Permanently down

• Recently activated

• Not working for an extended time

…please email us at w9jcarc@gmail.com. Your input helps the entire local ham community stay informed and connected.

🗂️ Share Your Chirp Files

Have a favorite IMG file you’ve built with Chirp Next? Send it our way! Just include a note about what’s inside and how you use it. We’re building a library of useful configurations for operators in:

• East Central Indiana

• Northwest Ohio

• West Central Ohio

⚠️ A Note on FRS, GMRS & MURS

Some of our shared images include FRS, GMRS, and MURS frequencies. While many amateur radios can receive these, most are not FCC type accepted to transmit on them. We do not condone transmitting on these frequencies with non-certified equipment.

That said, enforcement in 2025 is minimal—so it’s up to you to operate responsibly and within the rules.

The Latest Updates

If you'd like to have all frequencies in your area that are listed on Repeaterbook, that's not a problem. Once you have your radio and interface cables connected to your computer and your radio is able to be read and written to, you can open Chirp Next, click on Radio, then Query Source. Select RepeaterBook to start the procedure of selecting your local area including state. You'll typically get a lot of hits within the number of miles you've specified. About 40 miles could be a good choice, but if you travel a lot, you'll have to play it by ear. There is one caveat, however. It could easily create a file that has several hundred entries, even though your radio may hold just 128 (or less). If you're using the right radio model, Chirp will only load in enough entries to fill your radio. If yours holds several hundred or more, it probably won't be an issue, but do remember that unwanted entries are just taking up space and take time to scan or select the channel you want (unless you go directly to it with the keypad).

Let's Get Started

You're probably here to get some simple help programming your radio. This could be the right place, so read on, McDuff :-).

If you see it in the list below, let's start by downloading that image. Don't see it? Not a problem, just choose one as close as possible. It's a good way to at least get frequencies to work with. If your radio matches the make and model (or is compatible) of the  file, you can just upload it to your radio after making any desired changes in the settings , and skip the rest of the instructions. Make sure you have the latest Chirp program (or one reasonably recent). If you don't already have Chirp, Click Here.

Instructions

With your radio turned off, connect it to the computer using a programming cable. Don't have one? They're easy to find on eBay or Amazon. Try to make sure it's an FTDI type cable so Windows (or whatever) will recognize it and automatically load the driver. Turn your radio on and on some older models, to at least 3/4 volume. Open Chirp and click:

Radio  |  Download From Radio

Select your radio model and com port number. This will make certain you have a connection and have selected the correct make and model of your equipment. If it doesn't work right away, either your com port number is wrong or possibly a driver hasn't be loaded for your programming cable and it's not being recognized by your operating system. Instructions to do this are available online. We've found that even if you have an FTDI cable, on occasion you'll have to manually download the drivers. This link may help with Windows computers.

After your radio's image is downloaded:

File  |  Save

and save the file as-is in the folder of your choice (or leave it as it defaults). Next delete all of the entries that appear on the list. 

Edit  | Select All  |  Edit |  Delete. Note: You can use CTRL-A to select all, then hit the delete key on your keyboard as a shortcut.

Now: 

File  |  Open

and open the image file that you've previously downloaded from the list below. Make sure that both your radio's tab and the new image file tab are both showing at the top of the page. Select the tab that has the new image file. Click on: 

• Edit  |  Select All or CTRL-A

• Edit  |  Copy or CTRL-C

All of the entries should be lit in blue at this point.

Now go back to the programming tab of your radio and select the cell at the top left. You can use the arrow keys to make sure you're not clicking in the wrong place. This is the procedure:

• Edit  |  Select All or CTRL-A

• Edit  |  Delete or press the DELETE key

Make sure again that you've selected the top left cell (the entire row numbered 1 or 0 MUST be blue, not just the single cell). Now select

Edit  |  Paste or CTRL-V

Chirp will ask you if you'd like to overwrite entries if they're not already empty. Select "All" and save the file. You can now do a "Save as..." to custom name it or simply "Save" to either not change the default file name or to have Chirp name the file for you.  Now, upload the new frequencies to your radio using the Radio menu at the top, and in a few seconds, if all goes well, it's done. As a note, on some radios, the programming window's numbering will start at 0 and others will start as 1. It makes no difference as long as you put the cursor on the topmost left column. The line must be blue all the way across else it'll try to paste the copied data all into one cell. If that happens, just hit Enter and try to paste it again. Your radio may have many more memories so that shouldn't be an issue. We just want to keep everything as tidy as possible.

Chirp Image and Other Files

Please be aware that Windows and Google will probably alert you that these files cannot be scanned by a virus scanner. It's normal for data files like these to cause the operating system or web browser to give you a warning. We hope you find these files useful. We will be adding a number of files to this list as they are updated.

As an addendum, we've noticed that different flavors of some of the radios (I have 4 Baofeng UV-82s), sometimes image files won't upload properly (or at all) to the radio. If that's the case, just use the copy and paste method as described above after reading your radio. This works across brands and models, as well. Any incompatible frequencies will be rejected by Chirp Next.

As a recent addition, we now have an image file for the IRadio UV98 Plus along with the programming software. You can now access that on the list below. The programming software can be downloaded from our website from the link below, both the specific one for that radio and the one that covers many of the IRadio models. There is an interesting Facebook group for the IRadio UV98 Plus/Radtel RT880 and you can get that by clicking here.

The Exceptions

And yes, there are radios that cannot be programmed with Chirp. The ones that we're aware of right now are the IRadio UV-98, Radtel RT-880G, the TYT UVS9 and possibly the UVS9D. There are available for downloads the CPS for both of those radios here, but at present there is just one data image for the TYT radios. As a note, the difference between the TYT UVS9 and the UVS9D apparently is that the latter has two banks of 128 channels (a total of 256) and the former has only one. So, if you're programming the 9D, we suspect that you can use both the A and B banks, while the UVS9 can only use the first 128 and the B bank is ignored. We believe the 9D MIGHT be programmable by Chirp as well, but it doesn't work for the UVS9. The data image here is from the UVS9 so the B bank is not populated. and the frequencies cover specific areas around Decatur, Indiana as well as Portland. It also includes available freqs from Bluffton and Fort Wayne. As of May, 27, 2025, we now have a local image file for the IRadio UV98 Plus which is listed above and the CPS download is listed below.