The AnyTone AT-6666 is a 10-metre band mobile amateur radio with roots in CB. You can open up the radio to include the entire range 25 MHz to 31 MHz. That has no appeal to me, so I won’t go there. One of my reasons for buying this radio is to focus entirely on the 10-metre band as we approach the sunspot peak next year. I had been using the radio for a few months, but had not bothered to learn how to enable the repeater split for the few 10 m FM repeaters.
Documentation
For reasons that don’t make business sense, the slim, printed manual for the AT-6666 is a quick-reference guide, rather than its title as a “User’s Guide”. (I was once a Technical Editor at Unisys). There is a reference to repeater offsets, but that’s it. There is no mention of software or how to program the radio from a PC.
Software
I read a few 10-metre discussion groups and found out that free software for this radio is made by an unidentified source, as there is no mention of AnyTone on it. It’s called QPS6666. You need a special serial cable, which looks like a USB cable. I had forgotten that I ordered this cable with the radio; yet, a few days ago, I ordered another cable!
Connecting the Cable
The USB serial cable goes from the Windows PC to the back of the radio, where a mini-USB serial socket is available. A Prolific driver is required for this cable to work, as the regular Windows 11 serial port driver does not work with it. As this step has an element of chicken-and-egg to it, I will continue this point a little later. Upon installation of the software, the PC showed a new COM6 (the number might differ on your PC), and the software could see the radio (Setup > Communication Port > COM6) just fine.
Prolific port on COM6 in Device Manager.
QPS6666 Software
This software for the AT-6666 can be downloaded from a few places. It’s easy to install. To my knowledge, the software does not come with any manual, so I had to figure it out with trial and error. My goal was to put repeater offsets, which are minus 100 kHz, on the 10-metre band. The reception frequencies for the FM part of the band are pre-programmed in Band I. See the screenshot below. I picked one of the repeater frequencies at Channel 5. I changed the REP value from OFF to the minus sign. I did it to all the other repeater frequencies.
QX6666 software interface
Prolific Driver
The next day, the software could no longer see the radio, and Control Panel had lost COM6. See the screenshot below. I went to look for a source for the Prolific driver. I found this article, which is linked to the file and provides instructions, so I won’t repeat them here. I don’t know why I did not need to install this driver when I installed the QX6666 software. I have had this “lost Prolific driver” issue with another ham-radio program, and it seems to be Windows Update (10 or 11) that overwrites it. The good news is that once the radio has been programmed, you won’t need to use the software for some time. Reinstalling the driver is easy, and you need to reboot the PC afterwards.
Control Panel no longer showed COM6.
Repeater Operation
Initially, I could not get the rig to work in repeater split mode. It was in VFO mode, and I had to press the FRQ button to get it into Channel mode. Be sure to keep pressing the Band button until it shows the I band in the display. For each channel that you designated as a negative offset, you will see “REP” against it. See the photo below. When you key the mike, the radio will transmit 100 kHz below the channel receive frequency. Enjoy using the 10-metre repeaters when the band opens.
Keen owners of the Malahit SDR radio will want to update the firmware to get the latest features, so this short guide will help them. First, the latest version should be downloaded and unzipped. The files are kept here: Malahit DS2 Firmware Downloads. I downloaded version 2.10F. These instructions are largely based on Manuel’s fine resource for the Malahit DSP2.
Step 1. DFU Mode
You need to get the radio in DFU Mode, which enables you to perform the update. Get the antenna out of the way, e.g. remove or fold it. Then perform these steps:
Switch off the radio.
Lie the radio flat on its back.
Push the two buttons (Volume and Tuning) at the same time and holdthen down until step 5.
Push in the power button on the side and hold it in.
Releasethe two buttons.
Release the power button.
When the LED at the side of the radio is blinking green and red, it is in DFU mode.
If you cannot get the LED blinking red and green, do this sequence faster, else it don´t work.
Once the radio is in DFU mode, you can plug in a USB data cable between the Malahit DSP2 and your computer. In Windows 10 Device Manager, you should see it when you expand Universal Serial Bus devices:
Step 2. Start STM32CubeProgrammer
You need the free STM32CubeProgrammer program from STM. Download it and install it. Run it in Administrator mode (right-click its icon and you will see the option).
Step 3. Connect Malahit DSP2 to Computer
At the top right in STM32CubeProgrammer, select USB from the blue drop-down list, then click the Refresh icon. Next, click the green Connect button.
The STM32CubeProgrammer screen will look like this.
Step 4. Transfer the Firmware to the Malahit DSP2
Click the second icon on the left – Erasing and Programming. The screen should change and look like this.
Find the firmware file that you downloaded and unzipped. It will be a file with a .bin extension. It is version 2.10F in this example.
Tick the two boxes you see in the image above, Verify Programming and Run after programming. Finally, click Start Programming.
The LED will flash red and green, while the STM32 CubeProgrammer will show the progress of the firmware file upload at the bottom of the screen. A success message is displayed and you can click “Disconnect” now. If it fails, try again. You will not brick your radio if it fails, as it will remain at its previous level.
When you touch the Hard menu button, you will see the firmware version at the bottom right.
If Things Go Wrong
I had this verification error.
However, the radio seemed to work just fine, so I left it alone. I can always re-flash it if needed.
