As with the use of VX2 Commander, mods will be done at your own risk!

In the USA, FCC laws govern the use of amateur radio equipment, and other nations have similar laws. It is your responsibility to know, understand, and obey the laws that effect you. The author or contributors of VX-7 Commander will not be responsible for the unlawful misuse of your VX-7.




You should read and understand the following before applying software mods.

On the mod screen, all fields shown are the current settings from the VX2 file loaded into VX2 Commander, except for the "Current Config" byte.



THE SETTINGS:

There are 3 buttons at the top of the screen, for the different mods.
Click one of these, the settings will change to the proper ones automatically. 

The settings applied using the buttons are intended for US units only. On non-US units, using these buttons may cause the loss of auto-repeater shift, band edges, etc. Users with non-US units should apply the mods directly, by unchecking jumpers 4 and/or 5 to obtain the desired results.

The "Virtual Jumper" byte is the one to change for mods.

The "Current Config" byte is the current configuration of the VX2 
This byte will automatically be set when reading or writing to the VX2 , based on what is in your file. This allows you to try different mods without having to do anything special.
If this byte does not match what is in your VX2, you will receive a "CLONE ERROR".
You should never need to change this byte under normal use.

Byte 8 and Byte 9 should never be changed.
These are unique to your VX2's CPU version, and are automatically set only when reading from the VX2. These are stored and automatically used every time during a write. This allows files from VX2's with foreign CPU version to be used, without receiving a "CLONE ERROR".

Bytes 12, 13, and 14 can be changed freely, without receiving a clone error.

Byte 12 - I haven't seen this do anything on US units, however I have had reports that on European units this byte corresponds to the FM BC Band. 00 sets the band to 88-108 MHz (EXP Version) and 01 sets it to 59-108 MHz (US Version). See manual, page 10.

I do know it is 00 in the Japanese VX2, and 01 in the US. 

Byte 13 - When set to 00 = Ham Only RX
          When set to 01 = Wide RX
          When set to 02 = Wide RX (Everything I have seen is set to 02)

Byte 14 - When set to 00 = Ham Only TX
          When set to 01 = Wide TX

Both bytes 13 and 14 are 00 after doing a MON/F + HM/RV + Internet Key reset toggle type of operation, only allowing operation on ham bands.


DETAILS:

After writing to the VX2, the "Current Config" byte stored in the VX2 will be the same value as the "Virtual Jumper". So then if you read from the VX2, you will see that  the "Current Config" and "Virtual Jumper" are identical.

If you try to write to the VX2 and have the "Current Config" byte set differently than the one stored in the VX2 , you will get a "CLONE ERROR". However, it should not erase any of the VX2's memory.

I tried to make this easy to manage: as long as you have "Radio Data" selected, VX2 Commander will always default to the "Current Config" based on your last read or write to the VX2, and will use that when writing. This should make it easy to write different mods to the VX2 without any problems.

So in you should never have to change the "Current Config", unless you hardware mod your VX2, use Commander to mod on another PC, managing more than one VX2, etc.

If you do get a "CLONE ERROR", simply read from the VX2. This will automatically set your "Current Config" byte to the proper value. This byte can also be changed manually.

Here's the Known Settings for the Virtual Jumper:
Unmodified E0 = (11100000)
MARS/CAP   F0 = (11110000)
Freeband   E8 = (11101000)
Japanese?  F8 = (11111000)

***NOTE: After changing anything in the Mod screen and clicking OK, changes are applied to the file data loaded into VX2 Commander. Anytime you save after this, the modification changes you made will be written to your vx2 file. This means that when loading the file again, you will not have to change settings on the mod screen in order to perform the mod again, since the mod is written into your file. But take care not to save to a file you do not want saved in this way.

Note: when mods are applied, this will directly edit the data loaded in the software, so if the file is saved then the mod will be saved with it. This is not a problem unless for some reason you decide to use "File Data" instead of "Radio Data" when writing.


I do not know any more about the mods than I have written here.
I have tried some different settings for the Virtual Jumper and the others. The VX2 accepts them, but I haven't noticed any major changes in the VX2's behavior.
Feel free to try different settings, let me know what you find out.
I would like to know what these are set at on different VX2 versions. 

Jim
KC8UNJ





