What's the programming software capable of?

The head of maintenance of the retirement village I live at said that he wants to purchase some new Kenwood PKT-23 radios to use on their existing repeater system.  I do know that these radios have 99 pre-programmed frequencies installed at the factory and a simple way to program them from the front panel.  None of these frequencies will work on our existing UHF repeater.  Of course I will need to have a different frequency for transmit and receive. Does anyone know if the existing software will make it possible for me to reprogram these particular radios to our existing licensed repeater frequencies?

 

I did download the KPG-182D software for the PKT-23 and got it to work fine.  Unfortunately, this software can only program the existing 99 preset simplex channels.  So far I haven't found a way of putting in our existing repeater frequencies.

An Update:
I did get a reply from a dealer that appears to solve my issues.  The solution was on this site with the KPG-172D download.  The 'secret sauce' here is to select the LMR version of the PKT-23.  When you do that the software will allow you to select a separate RX and TX frequency and PL tone that applies to our repeater.  The next step will be to make sure we order the correct LMR version of the PKT-23 radios so they can be properly programmed for our system.

Another Update:
New PKT-23 radios were ordered and received, and I obtained a couple of old used ones as well.  The quality of the radios are good and they are very light and small.  The KPG-172 software works fine.  The software won't write the desired frequency to the radios without erroring out.  A dealer has been contacted but denies that there is an LMR version of this radio.  No telling why there's software to program a radio that doesn't exist.

Thanks, Ron
 

Yet another update for the Kenwood PKT-23K situation.

New PKT-23 radios were received from a dealer and the needed facility frequencies and sub audible tones were programmed into the radios and they work fine.  Kenwood dealers are authorized to program these radios to frequencies that are NOT one of the preprogrammed 99 channels.  I also bought 3 old used PKT's that were functional but the cases are pretty beat up.  These radios have an over the air cloning mode and I thought that maybe I could just clone a dealer programmed radio to one of the stock used ones that I had.  Unfortunately that did not work.  When the cloning mode was initiated the dealer programed radios refused to transfer the channels to any other radios.  It looks like the cloning function has been disabled.   So at the moment there doesn't seem to be any way to program these radios (unless you are a dealer) to some other channel other than the 99 ones that are programmed into the radios when they are new.
 

   I have one more update.  It looks like I have a 'work-around'.  By accident I loaded KPG-172D version 1.02 MPD SP1 (Jan 30 2014) into a recently acquired (Win10) computer.  The software on this site is newer and is KPG-172D version 1.12 (Mar 18 2015). You would think that newer would be better.  However here is the critical difference.  I wanted to program a standard PKT-23 portable to a repeater that was NOT on one of the standard 99 pre-programmed standard channels.  When I tried to switch to a LMR type radio and enter the correct frequencies, then write to the radio I would get an error message and couldn't go any farther.  With the older software when I did the same thing I would just get a warning and the software would ask me if I wanted to overwrite.  By selecting 'YES' I could then enter the desired repeater frequencies and the radio would then work as desired.  

Now, maybe someday Kenwood could make a firmware change and make this impossible.  Kenwood does say that if you are not a dealer you can't do any programming to anything other than the standard pre-programmed 99 channels.  We had to go thru a dealer to purchase a couple of radios for our repeater.  Now with the older software it looks like I can do the programming myself.
  

Hello,

sparky48 , where did you get KPG-172D version 1.02 MPD SP1 from?

I just had a couple of versions of the KPG-172D software on a memory stick that I downloaded over the last 6 months to a year.  Probably they were from this site or the radioreference one.  It could also be that the version 1.02 was on a year ago and was removed and replaced with version 1.12 because it was a newer version.  With the old version I could also reprogram my PKT-23 radios to the local UHF ham repeater frequencies and they worked fine.  I have looked for other locations that have the Kenwood software but haven't found any so far that have the old version.  

Hello sparky48 ,

By any chance could you upload the KPG-172D version 1.02 on to the site?

Thank you.
 

Hi guys… yes I've run into this issue as well…. little did I know that the Kenwood PKT 23K model can only be programmed on preset frequencies with a version 2.0 program.

Help! if the version 1.02 works. Will gladly pay for a copy.

Thank you!

By any chance could you upload the KPG-172D version 1.02


Thank you in advance Woody

I uploaded the Kenwood KPG-172D Version 1.02 MPD SP1 software this evening.  Before I did so I tested everything on a couple of the PKT-23 radios I still have.  Everything worked as expected.  There may be a software communications problem unless you have the correct software driver.  These drivers should also be included in the upload as well.  Hope this solution will work for you.

Thank you Sir, greatly appreciated

hi guys where again did you upload the 1,02? thanks!

I did the upload but for some reason the mods didn't allow it onto this site.  Maybe you could ask them why.  Once uploaded I did submit a ticket requesting that it be posted and told the mods why the older software would be useful.