Part of our Handheld Radios (HTs): The Complete Guide.
The hardest part of a new radio is not the radio. It is the blank memory list. A new ham gets licensed, opens the box, and then has to figure out which repeaters are nearby, what the offsets and tones are, and which simplex and weather frequencies are worth having. That used to mean an evening of copying numbers out of repeater directories into a spreadsheet. Now I hand that job to an AI assistant (Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, take your pick) and get a file I can load in a few minutes.
Why This Works So Well
CHIRP, the free programming software most of us use, imports a plain CSV file. A CSV is just text in columns: name, frequency, duplex direction, offset, tone. AI assistants are very good at two things that matter here: looking up public information and formatting it into a strict layout. Put those together and you can describe what you want in plain English and get back a file CHIRP will open.
One caveat up front: this works great for analog FM radios that CHIRP supports. Digital radios (DMR or otherwise) need a different approach. They are programmed with more than a simple channel list, things like talkgroups, zones, and contacts, so programming them is a bit more complex and a single CSV will not get you there. If that is your radio, start with Building Your First DMR Codeplug.
The Exact Prompt I Used
Here is what I typed, word for word:
I would like you to build me a csv file that I can import into chirp for my ham radio, that includes the following frequencies / repeaters in that file
Sacaton Repeater (N7ULY) – This is the repeater that I use the most, as well as the RACES, ARES, Rimlink, Metrolink, repeaters, the typical SHTF / Prepper frequencies, the 2m and 70cm national calling frequencies, the WX receive frequencies and any pertinent Pinal county Arizona public services frequencies (to monitor only)
That is it. No column names, no formatting instructions. Notice what I did include: the specific local repeater by callsign, the linked systems I care about by name, my county, and the words “to monitor only” for the public service channels. The more local detail you give, the better the result.
What Came Back
A 43 channel CSV in CHIRP’s own column layout, with short names that fit a handheld display and a comment on every row. It covers:
- The Sacaton N7ULY repeater, plus RACES, ARES, Rimlink, and Metrolink repeaters with offsets and tones
- The 2m (146.520) and 70cm (446.000) national calling frequencies
- Common simplex and prepper channels, in line with my list of frequencies every ham radio should have programmed for SHTF
- All seven NOAA weather radio channels, set to receive only
- Pinal County public service and interop channels, set to receive only and narrowband
- A few extras I did not ask for but was glad to get, like APRS on 144.390 and ARES tactical simplex
Download My File
If you are in Pinal County or the south side of the Phoenix metro, you can skip the prompt and grab my output directly. If you live somewhere else, use it as a template and swap in your own repeaters.
Loading It Into Your Radio
- Plug in your radio with a programming cable that actually works and download the current contents from the radio into CHIRP. Save that as a backup.
- Open the CSV in CHIRP. It opens in its own tab.
- Select the rows you want, copy them, and paste them into the tab for your radio.
- Review every row (see the next section), then upload to the radio.
Not every radio is supported by CHIRP. If yours is not, the same CSV idea still works with most other programming software, including RT Systems. Just tell the AI which software you are importing into.
Verify Everything Before You Trust It
This is the part you cannot skip. The AI is pulling from public information on the web, RepeaterBook style listings, club pages, and scanner databases. That information is not always current, and the AI can also simply get a number wrong and present it with total confidence. Repeaters change tones, move, or go off the air. Agencies move to trunked or encrypted systems and the old frequency goes quiet.
Treat the file as a first draft, including mine. Before you rely on it:
- Check each repeater (frequency, offset, tone) against a current listing or the club that runs it. My Arizona clubs guide and regional frequency cheat sheet is a good cross-reference for the systems in this file.
- Key up and test. If you cannot bring up the repeater, the tone or offset is the first suspect.
- Confirm the monitor-only channels cannot transmit. In CHIRP that means the Duplex column is set to “off”. Public service and weather rows in my file are set that way. Transmitting on those frequencies is illegal.
- Look hard at the MURS and GMRS rows. In my file they are not locked to receive only. A ham radio is not certified to transmit on those services, so set Duplex to “off” on those rows unless you are loading a radio that is legal there.
- Expect some rows your radio cannot use. The 123.100 AM airband entry, for example, will not work on most dual-band handhelds.
Reorder the Channels to Match How You Operate
The AI puts channels in whatever order made sense to it, usually the order you listed them in the prompt. That is rarely the order you want on the radio. Channel order decides what you land on when you turn the knob and, on most radios, the order the scan steps through. Before you upload, rearrange the rows in CHIRP (or in a spreadsheet before you import) so the list fits the way you operate. I like my everyday repeater and the calling frequencies at the top, the repeaters I use less often next, and the monitor-only channels grouped together at the end. Then decide what you actually want in the scan. In my file the weather channels are already marked to skip, since a nonstop weather broadcast will stop your scan every single time, and you may want to skip or prioritize others. You can also just ask the AI to do it: tell it the order and groupings you want and have it rebuild the file.
Why This Matters for a New Ham
When you are new, you do not know what you do not know. You would not think to ask for Rimlink or the national calling frequency because nobody has told you they exist yet. A prompt like mine gets you a sensible, organized starting list in minutes, and reading through the result teaches you what is on the air around you. Verifying it teaches you even more, because you end up looking at offsets and tones and finally understanding what they do.
If you are still picking out that first radio, start with my framework for choosing your first HT. Then come back, copy the prompt, change the repeater and county to yours, and let the AI do the typing. You do the checking.