TYT MD-9600 / Retevis RT-90 : Experimental version
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2021 7:13 am
Colin G4EML, Daniel and I are currently porting the firmware to the TYT MD9600 mobile DMR / FM radio.
This project has been ongoing for 3 months, but actually started over a year ago, when I investigated porting the code to to various other TYT radios that use the STM32 CPU.
Could any forum members own a MD9600 and would be willing to test an Alpha version of the firmware, please reply to this thread, and I will then contact you via email with more details about the current status of the firmware etc.
The firmware is a direct port of the OpenGD77 firmware, so all the menus etc and the display is the same
However the physical display on the MD9600 uses rectangular pixels, so the text and other graphics are stretched horizontally, slightly
We are not supporting the MD9600 codeplug format as its completely different from even the offical GD77 codeplug format.
The firmware uses the GD77 codeplug format and hence we can use the OpenGD77 CPS
Currently most major functions work, but may have small problems
FM Tx and Rx is working
DMR Tx and Rx is working
Satellite mode is working. GPS versions are also supported, however I don't have a radio with a GPS, only Colin has a GPS radio, so I have not been able to test this functionality.
The MD9600 does not have many of the buttons which the GD77 has.
It does not have the Left or Right buttons, on either the front panel of the radio or the mic keypad, it also does not have the SK1 and SK2 buttons.
Instead it has 4 buttons on the front panel P1 to P4
Currently the UI control of the radio is a work in progress, while we try to find the best combination of available buttons on the MD9600 to replace the SK1, SK2 , Left and Right buttons.
Because of the difference in buttons, some functions currently don't work, including Monitor mode, and QuickKeys, as well as pressing SK2 to change Tx TG to match the currently received TG.
The hardware in the MD9600 almost completely different from the GD77. The only chip that the 2 radios have in common is the C6000 DMR DSP chip.
* The CPU in the MD9600 is a ST STM32F4 device, whereas the GD77 uses a NXP MK22. These CPUs are from completely different manufacturers, and have to be programmed completely differently.
* The MD9600 does not use the AT1846S RF chip as used in the GD77, it has descrete PLL chips, mixers , IF chips and detector circuits.
* The MD9600 does not have an EEPROM for high speed data storage it only has a single 16Mb Flash chip. However the STM32F4 CPU has some battery backed RAM which was have been able to use to store the settings that are stored in the EEPROM of the GD77
* The display is effectively the same number of pixels as the GD77, 128 x 64, and the display controller uses the same data format, however the pixels are rectangular not square which results in the fonts etc looking slighly different. This is unavoidable and we can't change the font to make the text look thinner as there is not enough display resolution
* For Tx, the MD9600 uses the DMR DSP chip for FM as well as for DMR. The DMR DSP chip can also be used or FM Rx but the official firmware only uses it for Tx. However we are also using it to detect CTCSS on Rx signals, though not using it for Rx audio at the moment.
Currently the firmware still has as large number of bugs and various bits of functionality which don't work at all.
This project has been ongoing for 3 months, but actually started over a year ago, when I investigated porting the code to to various other TYT radios that use the STM32 CPU.
Could any forum members own a MD9600 and would be willing to test an Alpha version of the firmware, please reply to this thread, and I will then contact you via email with more details about the current status of the firmware etc.
The firmware is a direct port of the OpenGD77 firmware, so all the menus etc and the display is the same
- IMG_20211230_180211.jpg (52.59 KiB) Viewed 10993 times
- IMG_20211230_180239.jpg (43.8 KiB) Viewed 10993 times
We are not supporting the MD9600 codeplug format as its completely different from even the offical GD77 codeplug format.
The firmware uses the GD77 codeplug format and hence we can use the OpenGD77 CPS
Currently most major functions work, but may have small problems
FM Tx and Rx is working
DMR Tx and Rx is working
Satellite mode is working. GPS versions are also supported, however I don't have a radio with a GPS, only Colin has a GPS radio, so I have not been able to test this functionality.
The MD9600 does not have many of the buttons which the GD77 has.
It does not have the Left or Right buttons, on either the front panel of the radio or the mic keypad, it also does not have the SK1 and SK2 buttons.
Instead it has 4 buttons on the front panel P1 to P4
Currently the UI control of the radio is a work in progress, while we try to find the best combination of available buttons on the MD9600 to replace the SK1, SK2 , Left and Right buttons.
Because of the difference in buttons, some functions currently don't work, including Monitor mode, and QuickKeys, as well as pressing SK2 to change Tx TG to match the currently received TG.
The hardware in the MD9600 almost completely different from the GD77. The only chip that the 2 radios have in common is the C6000 DMR DSP chip.
* The CPU in the MD9600 is a ST STM32F4 device, whereas the GD77 uses a NXP MK22. These CPUs are from completely different manufacturers, and have to be programmed completely differently.
* The MD9600 does not use the AT1846S RF chip as used in the GD77, it has descrete PLL chips, mixers , IF chips and detector circuits.
* The MD9600 does not have an EEPROM for high speed data storage it only has a single 16Mb Flash chip. However the STM32F4 CPU has some battery backed RAM which was have been able to use to store the settings that are stored in the EEPROM of the GD77
* The display is effectively the same number of pixels as the GD77, 128 x 64, and the display controller uses the same data format, however the pixels are rectangular not square which results in the fonts etc looking slighly different. This is unavoidable and we can't change the font to make the text look thinner as there is not enough display resolution
* For Tx, the MD9600 uses the DMR DSP chip for FM as well as for DMR. The DMR DSP chip can also be used or FM Rx but the official firmware only uses it for Tx. However we are also using it to detect CTCSS on Rx signals, though not using it for Rx audio at the moment.
Currently the firmware still has as large number of bugs and various bits of functionality which don't work at all.
