Part of our Handheld Radios (HTs) guide.
A programming cable should be a boring, reliable piece of gear. In practice, cheap ones are a genuinely common source of frustration, driver problems, connection failures partway through a write, and radios that seem to accept a program but come out wrong. The chipset inside the cable matters more than the price tag suggests.
Why the chipset matters
Nearly all cheap programming cables use a USB-to-serial chip to bridge your computer’s USB port to the radio’s programming interface, and the quality and genuineness of that chip varies enormously between cables that look identical from the outside. Genuine FTDI chips have a well-earned reputation for reliability and broad driver support across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Counterfeit or clone FTDI chips, unfortunately common in the cheapest cables, can cause driver installation failures or intermittent connection drops that are maddening to troubleshoot since the cable often works fine some of the time.
Prolific chips: a mixed bag
Prolific-chipset cables are the other common option, and while genuine Prolific chips work fine, the chip has an even worse reputation for counterfeiting than FTDI, and older Prolific drivers have had well-documented compatibility issues with newer Windows versions. If you’re buying a cable and see Prolific listed, it’s worth doing a little extra research on that specific product’s driver support before committing.
What I actually look for
I buy programming cables specifically marketed for CHIRP compatibility from sellers with a track record and genuine chipsets, rather than the cheapest option on a marketplace search. It costs a few dollars more, but a cable that reliably programs your radio the first time, every time, is worth far more than the small amount saved buying the unknown-chipset version. If a cable ever gives you driver headaches on a fresh install, that’s usually your first sign it’s not using a genuine chip, and replacing it outright is often faster than fighting with driver workarounds.
Related reading: HT Battery Types · Essential HT Accessories