Open Rig Programmer

A free memory-channel programmer for Yaesu, Icom and Kenwood radios. It reads a radio's memories into a file, lets you edit them in a grid or a spreadsheet, and sends them back over the radio's ordinary USB cable. A desktop app and a command-line tool, rigprog, for macOS, Windows and Linux. It imports and exports CSV, including CHIRP's, reads before it writes, shows every change for approval, and reads each channel back after writing it. Nothing is deleted, and menu settings stay read-only.

A personal project, tested on one radio

This started as a programmer for my own FT-710, still the only radio it has ever been connected to. Reading and writing there are verified on the real thing.

Many other radios have been added since, built from the makers' own published protocol manuals and tested against simulators. Reading them is safe. Writing stays off until you switch it on for that radio, and every write is previewed, snapshotted and read back.

Radio	Read	Write
FT-710	✅	✅ verified on a real radio
FTdx10, FTdx101D, FTdx101MP, FT-891, FT-991A, FTdx5000, FT-2000, FT-2000D, FTdx9000, FT-950, FTdx3000, FTdx1200, FT-450D, FT-890, FT-900, FT-1000MP (and Mark-V), FTX-1	✅	⚠️ opt-in
IC-7610, IC-7300, IC-7300MK2, IC-705, IC-9700, IC-905, IC-7851, IC-7850, IC-7760, IC-7100, IC-7800, IC-7600, IC-7410, IC-7700, IC-9100, IC-7200	✅	⚠️ opt-in
IC-R8600 (a receiver)	✅	⚠️ opt-in
TS-590S, TS-590SG	✅	⚠️ opt-in
TS-890S, TS-990S	✅	⚠️ opt-in, existing channels only
TS-2000, TS-2000X, TS-B2000	✅	⚠️ opt-in
TS-570D, TS-570S, TS-570DG (UNVERIFIED-BY-INHERITANCE — see radio-notes.md)	✅	⚠️ opt-in
TS-870S	✅	⚠️ opt-in
FT-817, FT-817ND, FT-818, FT-857, FT-857D, FT-897, FT-897D (clone-mode read only — see radio-notes.md)	✅ --clone	❌ read-only

That is 53 radios. Per-radio detail, including where the program guesses, is in docs/radio-notes.md.

If you own one of the opt-in radios, please try it and say how it went. Open an issue with the output of rigprog version and rigprog probe; the wiki's Reporting a Test page says what else helps.

Install

Everything is on the Releases page, with a SHA256SUMS file to check any download.

• macOS: unzip the app. Releases published here are signed with a Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so it opens like any other download. With Homebrew: brew install --cask gm5dna/amateur-radio/open-rig-programmer.
• Windows: run the installer for your machine (amd64 or ARM64). SmartScreen will say Windows protected your PC: click More info, then Run anyway. docs/windows-setup.md covers the serial driver.
• Linux: on Debian, Ubuntu or Mint, sudo apt install ./<file>.deb; on Fedora or openSUSE, sudo dnf install ./<file>.rpm (built but untested on a real Fedora install); elsewhere with Flatpak, flatpak install --user ./<file>.flatpak (amd64 and aarch64 bundles are both published). Otherwise, the tarball is a single static binary. docs/linux-setup.md covers the dialout group and ModemManager.

First use

Choose the radio and the port, connect (or pick Demo to try it with a simulated radio), read, edit in the grid, then Send. The radio's USB adapter appears as two serial ports and only one answers. The FT-710 needs firmware V01-10 or later.

The command line does the same job for scripts and backups:

rigprog read  --port /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART --out radio.json   # save the memories
rigprog write --port /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART edited.json        # preview, then send

rigprog help lists the rest. Add --model IC-7300 for another radio, or --fake for the simulator.

Switching on writes for an unverified radio

The app asks the first time you connect to one of these radios, and its Unverified writes… button opens the list at any time. On the command line:

rigprog settings unverified-writes IC-7610 on     # allow writes to the IC-7610

Permission changes what the program may send, not how carefully it sends it.

Menu settings are different. They stay read-only everywhere, including the FT-710: the manual's own FT-710 settings chart has already been shown wrong, so only testing on hardware can be trusted. An FT-710 settings-write path is merged but not yet in a tagged release — see CHANGELOG.md's Unreleased section.

For developers

docs/developing.md covers building from source, the repository layout, the evidence records and releasing. CHANGELOG.md lists what changed in each release. The wiki is the user manual: getting started per platform, the grid, import and export, reading and writing, and a page per radio family.

Licence

GPL-3.0-or-later; see LICENSE. This program comes without any warranty. If you connect it to your transceiver, you do so entirely at your own risk; the authors accept no liability for damage to your radio, its firmware or its memory contents.