It’s pretty simple once you get the hang. First of all you have to set the I/O to 1.6MHz for the 222MHz band. This is done by doing the following:

– Press the orange F key and then the 9 key to get into settings

– Scroll to option 4 with the up and down keys – until the frequency differential reads 01.60

– Press the F key to save it.

Now the repeater offsets will work. The radio has a split personality – it originally started out as a radio for 2m and 70cm so now that it’s on 1.25m it retains the 10MHz offset which doesn’t work so doing the above gets you set to go!

So now key in your frequency – for my example I just programmed in the 224.060 repeater with negative offset and CTCSS of 103.5.

1) Enter the frequency into the radio, in this case 224.060.

2) To set the offset hold down the orange F key and press 5 and it cycles between none, positive and negative offset. Another relic of 2m and 70cm here.

3) To set the CTCSS press the orange F key and then the 8 button. Then use the navigation buttons to scroll to item 14 which is the 103.5Hz CTCSS tone to access the repeater.

4) To save the repeater in memory press the orange F key and then the * key. Use the direction buttons to choose a memory slot to store the memory. The radio does not automatically go to next empty slot btw, so try to remember where you started.

5) Once you’ve programmed it in the radio will be in channel mode. To switch back to Frequency mode hit the # (VM) key. You can continue to add repeaters following the steps above.

** Special Note ***

To change the power level on a channel simply hit the orange F key and the # key. It toggles between lighting the little L indicators in the display and turning it off. When the indicator is off it’s in high power mode. Save the channel again (F+*).

I hope this helps folks out. It’s a whole lot more clear this way than in the Chinese to English manual.