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Advanced features Button functions FM broadcast radio receiver Fox Hunt and Beacon Getting started Home Menu Multiboot and Multiconfig Overlay applications Overlay apps Programming with CHIRP Radio operation Recent changes Scanning Spectrum analyzer Troubleshooting UV Studio UVTools2 web tool Videos and tutorials
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Recent changes
Armel FAUVEAU edited this page 2026-09-06 23:37:46 +02:00
Table of Contents

🌐 Translate Automatic translation is available via Google Translate: Open translated version.

Recent changes

This page summarizes the main user-visible changes in recent releases and the future v6.0.0, and points to the detailed wiki pages for each feature.

For the official release archive, see the GitHub releases page.

v6.0.0 development highlights

v6.0.0 is still under development. Its new storage and app features require matching firmware and UV Studio support, so details may continue to evolve before release.

Multiboot

Compatible editions can store four additional F4HWN firmware images in external Flash. Hold M (MENU) by itself while switching on the radio to open the startup selector, validate the stored images, and restore Main or slot 1 to 4.

The firmware automatically protects the normally flashed image as Main, verifies the complete CRC of a slot before erasing internal Flash, and records its active state redundantly. UV Studio's Firmware Slots view installs, verifies, names, and erases the four user slots while the radio is in normal mode.

Only Multiboot-capable v6.0.0 or newer F4HWN images should be installed in these slots. See Multiboot and Multiconfig.

Multiconfig and SetCfg

Each firmware slot selects a separate configuration bank by default. Memory channels, channel names, VFOs, scan lists, and radio settings therefore remain isolated when switching editions. Calibration, the boot logo, firmware/app slots, Multiboot state, and RF log remain shared.

The new SetCfg menu can deliberately pair the running firmware with another bank. SysInf shows independent SLOT and CFG badges, and UV Studio can reset a user slot's configuration without erasing its firmware.

See Multiboot and Multiconfig and Menu.

Reliable Air Copy with ACK/RESEND

Air Copy now waits for an acknowledgement after every block. The receiver verifies the packet before writing it and can request a resend; the sender retries lost, damaged, or unacknowledged blocks up to three times. Duplicate blocks are acknowledged safely, so a lost ACK no longer desynchronizes the transfer.

A new All (Mem+Set) choice transfers all eight 128-channel banks and Settings in one continuous run. The screen reports TX/RX progress plus retry or error counts.

See Advanced features.

Overlay apps in Labs

The experimental Labs edition can install small .app programs in external Flash and execute them from a checked 4 KiB RAM overlay. UV Studio's Apps (Labs) view installs, verifies, lists, and removes apps; F + 7 opens the on-radio launcher.

The loader validates the app format, ABI/API compatibility, required capabilities, RAM address, size, and code CRC before execution. Available apps include radio tools such as Broadcast FM, FoxHunt, Beacon, and Beam, plus Breakout, Tetris, Cube3D, and Plasma.

See Overlay apps for installation and compatibility, and Overlay applications for the purpose and controls of each app.

Editions and build presets

The release family now centers on Fusion, with specialized FieldOps, Transfer, Labs, and Max editions. Transfer enables Air Copy and resident Beam; FieldOps keeps Fox Hunt and Beacon resident; Labs carries the overlay-app experiment; and Max combines the broadest resident feature set where memory permits.

Beacon keying mode (TONE / CARR)

Beacon gains a keying-mode setting on key 4. TONE (default) is the previous behaviour — a continuous FM carrier with the 1000 Hz tone keyed for each Morse element (MCW / F2A). CARR interrupts the carrier itself for every element, reproducing the carrier-interrupted pattern many ARDF foxes use in the field: the signal disappears between elements, making direction finding harder and letting a plain AM receiver copy it. The setting is saved and included in Air Copy transfers, and is available in both the resident and overlay Beacon. See Fox Hunt and Beacon.

v5.9.0 highlights

These changes were developed after v5.8.0 and released in v5.9.0.

Categorized menu browser

Fusion development builds open the menu on a category screen instead of immediately showing the original flat list. The available categories are Channels, Scan, Keys, Power, Display, Timers, Audio, Radio, and DTMF. The hidden-menu startup also adds a Service category.

The All category keeps the original flat-menu order and global numbering. Entering a menu number directly from the category screen also switches to All, so existing numbered-menu shortcuts continue to work. The firmware remembers the last selected category and the last item used in each category for the current session.

See Menu.

Side-key action picker

After pressing F, hold either side button to open a temporary action picker. Use UP / DOWN on UV-K5, or LEFT / RIGHT on UV-K1, to browse the available compiled shortcut actions and press M to run the highlighted action. EXIT or F cancels the picker; pressing PTT closes it and continues with normal transmit handling.

The picker closes automatically after approximately five seconds or when reception starts. Each side button remembers its last picker selection until the radio restarts. A normal short F + side-button press keeps its existing Step-up / Step-down behavior.

See Button functions.

Fox Hunt / Beacon improvements

Fox Hunt adds two deeper front-end-gain steps after the original ATT 0, ATT 6, ATT 15, and ATT 27 settings. They are shown as BYP and BYP+; these names describe convenient close-range modes, not a literal hardware bypass. The navigation keys (UP / DOWN on UV-K5, or LEFT / RIGHT on UV-K1) now change attenuation directly.

After a gain change, the firmware briefly lets the RSSI detector settle and then resets the peak, minimum, trend, and signal-history references. This avoids stale peaks and artificial jumps when moving between gain ranges.

Holding F for approximately 0.5 seconds toggles a temporary keypad lock shared by Fox Hunt and Beacon. In Fox Hunt, the navigation keys remain available for attenuation while locked. In Beacon, all normal controls are blocked until the same long press unlocks the keypad, including during an active transmission.

Fox Hunt and Beacon now both ignore the normal SetOff inactivity timer and remain active until explicitly exited. Their ordinary backlight timeout and battery updates continue to operate.

See Fox Hunt and Beacon.

Scan and FM broadcast fixes

During memory scan, changing the active scan list temporarily holds scan resumption while the scan-list name is actually displayed. This keeps the hidden progress gauge and the scan position synchronized. Frequency and range scans are not paused because they do not show the name overlay.

An active FM broadcast station scan now ignores an incoming signal detected on the main radio channel, so the FM scan is not interrupted. Normal FM listening still yields to main-channel reception as before.

See Scanning and FM broadcast receiver.

v5.8.0 highlights

These changes are based on commits after the v5.7.0 tag in feature_update_v5.

Fox Hunt / Beacon

Fusion builds add a programmable FOX HUNT / BEACON action with two complementary modes:

  • Fox Hunt provides a calibrated dBm display, S-meter and peak readings, a one-second signal trend, selectable attenuation, Geiger-style or received-station audio, and a choice between a staircase gauge and an approximately 18-second signal history.
  • Beacon uses the active TX VFO to transmit an ARDF identifier or <CALLSIGN> MOE in Morse, with adjustable 5 to 60-second TX windows and 5 to 240-second silent intervals.

Beacon takes its callsign from CHIRP Message Line 1 and begins its first transmission immediately when selected. Before every burst, the firmware checks the applicable TX frequency lock, per-VFO TXLock, battery state, and modulation restriction.

The attenuation, gauge, audio mode, and Beacon interval are saved in external flash and are included in Air Copy Settings transfers.

See Fox Hunt and Beacon and Button functions.

v5.7.0 highlights

These changes are based on commits after the v5.6.1 tag in feature_update_v5.

UV Studio

UV Studio brings K5Viewer and UVTools2 together in one browser-based interface.

It provides live screen mirroring and non-TX keypad control, compatible RF-log viewing and analytics, RF-log CSV export, firmware flashing, calibration backup/restore, and custom boot-logo management. It runs locally through Web Serial without an installation, server, or account.

UV Studio is intended to become the main browser-based companion for the Fusion firmware. The standalone K5Viewer and UVTools2 applications remain available during the transition.

RF log

Builds with RX/TX logging add a programmable RF LOG shortcut action.

The RF log records receive, monitor, and transmit sessions in external flash, then shows them in a newest-first history view. Each entry can show the channel name or frequency, RX/TX direction, duration, RX S-meter or TX power level, and lowest battery voltage seen during the session.

The log screen supports:

  • ALL, RX, and TX filters
  • up to 512 visible traffic entries
  • jump-to-newest and jump-to-oldest shortcuts with F plus the navigation keys (UP / DOWN on UV-K5, or LEFT / RIGHT on UV-K1)
  • a clear confirmation flow before erasing the log

See Advanced features and Button functions.

ScanRange exclusions

ScnRng can now keep up to 64 temporary excluded frequencies, instead of 32.

As before, the list is circular, is not written to memory, and is cleared when the radio restarts or when the range identity changes.

See Scanning.

SetLck lock scope

SetLck now has four choices instead of two:

  • KEYS
  • KEYS + ACTIONS
  • KEYS + PTT
  • KEYS + ACTIONS + PTT

ACTIONS covers the programmable shortcuts assigned to the two side buttons and M Long. This makes it possible to keep those shortcuts available while locking the front keypad, or to disable them as part of the lock. PTT can be locked independently to prevent accidental transmission.

See Menu and Button functions.

K5Viewer maintenance

The firmware-side screen streaming code has been renamed internally from screenshot handling to K5Viewer handling. Builds that enable the optional RX/TX-log K5Viewer bridge can also stream recent RF-log rows to compatible viewer tooling.

See Advanced features.

v5.6.0 highlights

These changes are based on the post-v5.5.0 commits in feature_update_v5.

SetSav screen saver

Builds with screen-saver support add the SetSav menu.

Available modes:

  • OFF: no screen saver
  • LOGO: show the stored boot logo as an idle screen
  • LOGO+: show the stored boot logo with a scrolling effect
  • MATRIX: show a matrix-style animated idle screen

SetSav is tied to the backlight timeout. It can display on the main screen and FM broadcast screen when the radio is idle, and it is suspended during RX, TX, PTT, BEAM, and active FM scanning.

See Radio operation and Menu.

Because SetSav is inserted before the hidden menu, hidden-menu indices move by one in v5.6.0: F Lock starts at 72 instead of 71.

Boot logo startup sound

When POnMsg = LOGO, the startup logo mode can still keep the normal boot beep behavior.

See Menu and UV Studio.

Scan RSSI indicator

Fast scan builds can display a small RSSI sparkline while scanning. It gives a compact view of recent RSSI samples so strong candidates stand out visually while the scan is running.

See Scanning.

Scan-range subaudible detection

ScnRng can detect CTCSS / DCS while stopped on a received signal. The detected subaudible code is shown in the scan UI when available.

See Scanning.

Frequency copy UI

The F+4 frequency-copy scanner screen now separates the search state and the result more clearly:

  • Search Freq
  • Search Tone
  • Scan Complete
  • Scan Failed
  • detected Freq: and Tone: details

See Scanning.

K5Viewer and screenshot updates

Screen-saver frames are synchronized to K5Viewer, and screenshot handling has been optimized to reduce RAM usage and avoid stale chunks.

See Advanced features.

Fixes and refinements

That release also included several behavior fixes and UI refinements:

  • bandscope / spectrum frequency rounding for 8.33 kHz steps
  • AM-to-FM dual-watch RX reconfiguration
  • VFO lock icon placement while scanning
  • screen-saver wake/sleep edge cases
  • hollow manual-backlight icon when manual light is off

v5.5.0 highlights

Faster scan engine

Current builds can use the newer FAST scan engine for memory scan and ScnRng.

The SetScn menu selects between:

  • NORMAL: the conservative scan path
  • FAST: a faster path that pre-checks channels or range steps with RSSI before doing the full receive setup

In favorable conditions, ScnRng in FAST mode can scan around 150+ frequencies per second.

See Scanning and Menu.

Temporary scan-range exclusions

While a ScnRng scan is stopped on a received frequency, long-press MENU to exclude that frequency from the current range scan.

This was introduced with 32 slots in v5.5.0; current post-v5.6.1 builds allow 64 temporary exclusions. These exclusions are cleared when the radio restarts or when the range identity changes.

See Scanning.

BEAM transfer mode

Builds with BEAM support can send the current VFO or memory-channel configuration to another radio, or receive a BEAM packet and save it to the first free memory channel.

BEAM is opened through a programmable shortcut action.

See Advanced features and Button functions.

Builds with logo support can display a custom 128x64 monochrome boot logo at startup.

Upload or download the logo with UV Studio, then select LOGO in the POnMsg menu.

See UV Studio, Menu, and Troubleshooting.

DCS / CTCSS display improvements

The RxDCS, TxDCS, RxCTCS, and TxCTCS menus now show both the selected entry position and the homologated index when one exists.

This makes it easier to distinguish normal list position, PMR446-homologated entries, extra tones, and inverted DCS entries.

See Menu.

Channel-name editing

ChName editing has been improved with multi-tap input, uppercase/lowercase switching, direct numeric entry with long key presses, and clearer EXIT behavior.

See Menu.

Spectrum analyzer persistence

The spectrum analyzer now saves more settings when leaving the sweep screen with EXIT, including trigger mode, automatic sensitivity profile, manual scale, and trigger level.

Starting the analyzer from ScnRng no longer overwrites the saved scan step or bar-count preference.

See Spectrum analyzer.

SysInf and build information

SysInf is now paginated in current builds. Depending on build options, it can show identity, build date/time, commit identifier, battery information, memory usage, and QR-code project links.

See Menu.

Air Copy settings coverage

Air Copy Settings transfers now include the VFO area used by features such as ScnRng, so scan-range boundary frequencies are replicated when copying settings.

See Advanced features.

Recent v5.x changes also worth knowing

The following changes landed shortly before v5.5.0 and are documented in the wiki because they affect daily use:

  • SetRxA selects different RX audio profiles for FM and AM; in AM, it can switch between SHARP, STOCK, and OPEN.
  • scan lists support short names, and memory scan can switch between valid non-empty lists while scanning.
  • SysInf, FM broadcast radio, and the spectrum analyzer UI were refined across recent builds.
  • the hidden SetNav menu lets the same documentation work for UV-K1 and UV-K5 V3 navigation styles.

See Menu, Scanning, Radio operation, and FM broadcast radio receiver.

Related pages

Navigation

Start here

Daily use

Reference