Re: Ailunce HD1
Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2023 8:46 am
I am an owner of both the "old" and "new" Ailunce HD1 versions. I do not know if the new one is a "Saturday night special" but I almost returned it, then kept it in case I got to play with the firmware in the future. There are many things wrong with this radio (HD1P V2 version with GPS):
- the bundled programming cable works only with drivers supplied by Retevis/Ailunce after a request in their CPS (strangely it flashes correctly with DFU mode)
- stock antenna delivered with the radio is tuned to to 149MHz in 2m band and around 405MHz in 70cm band, having SWR over 2 in both HAM bands
maximum output power with fully charged battery on high setting does not exceed 7W for both UHF and VHF (even with 50W specialized resistive load) - should be 8W/10W and I do not know of any way to adjust the factory calibration right now. - also the frequency calibration of this specific radio seems to be quite off (> 200 Hz according to SDR/hotspot) at least in the UHF band.
- both versions use specific DFU protocol as mentioned above, however it is known, so it is probably not a big issue itself (but CPS sources are not available to add it).
- Like the RT50 (aka TYT MD-680D) mentioned in developer discussions, it is using the serial-to-USB converter (with the same "hack" of USB pins also being connected directly to the UART RX/TX lines at least in V1) so the serial communication with CPS would have to be changed in the radio to use UART directly.
- V1 has also colour graphical display, I do not know if any of the supported MK22-based radios has one and how much RAM/Flash ROM is still free but I would suppose the memory requirements will be increased because of its usage in OpenGD77 firmware.