The Radio Information Board

Have been sent a 7160 for a new fire truck and need some help.

What is the correct programming software for the 7160?

Will the cable i have for our 760 radios work?

Why does kenwood keep changing the software?

You will need the KPG-99D software.

The cable for the TK-760G will work (the KPG-46 8-pin cable), but not the 6 pin cable from the non-G models. (If you have 8 pins, you're good to go).

Kenwood keeps changing the software because each model incorporates different features, and trying to keep one version of software that's backward compatible with every model of radio is a very difficult job. MACOM does this with ProGrammer, but then you have pay 5 times as much to buy the one program to program the model of radio you have and the 25 models of radio that you don't care about. Plus, every time a new model comes out, you have to pay for the whole thing, instead of updating each application separately.

By keeping the software packages separate, Kenwood can update each one as needed, instead of coming out with 19 versions (like MACOM ProGrammer). I would say they do it because they want to make money, but the Kenwood software has always been reasonably priced IMHO, and I don't think they're gouging you (well, not that badly).

Meatball wrote:You will need the KPG-99D software.

The cable for the TK-760G will work (the KPG-46 8-pin cable), but not the 6 pin cable from the non-G models. (If you have 8 pins, you're good to go).

Actually, you can use the same cable.
The 6 pin cable will fit in the 8 pin hole of the tk-7160 and will program the radio.

Well, I've found that to be mostly true, the 6-pin cable will work unless you are programming a radio for trunking. I tried to program a TK-880 in LTR mode; the 6 pin cable would not program it (but the 8-pin cable did). The outermost pins must write to some part of the EEPROM that's used in trunking but not in conventional.

I don't think I've ever tried using the 6-pin cable on the TK-7160, but it's good to know that it works with that model also.

I'm pretty sure I have used the 6-pin cable on both the -80 and -180 series radios in trunking mode.

Birken