🌐 Translate Automatic translation is available via Google Translate: Open translated version.
This page summarizes the latest stable v6.1.0 release and the main user-visible changes in earlier versions.
For the official release archive, see the GitHub releases page.
v6.1.0 is the latest stable release. It focuses on faster and safer data transfer, the new MIX scan-list mode, expanded Labs maintenance through UV Studio, and several reliability fixes.
Download firmware and accompanying files from the v6.1.0 release page. The release provides the four official editions—Fusion, FieldOps, Transfer, and Labs—plus the matching shared CHIRP driver. Choose the edition by capability rather than treating Fusion as a package containing every specialized feature.
v6.1.0 edition. Perform a factory reset only if the release instructions or the migration path from your installed version explicitly requires it.v6.1.0 CHIRP driver and download a fresh image from the updated radio.v6.1.0 in UV Studio’s versioned app catalog. Replace any overlay app that the loader reports as incompatible.v6.1.0 firmware; its optimized radio protocol is not wire-compatible with earlier versions.For an additional safety copy after installing v6.1.0 Labs, UV Studio can save the complete external Flash. See Choosing the right backup or copy.
The v6.1.0 AirCopy protocol sends up to three 64-byte blocks in one FSK frame, reducing turnaround overhead and making radio transfers approximately twice as fast. It compares CRC32 hashes in groups of up to 24 blocks and sends only blocks that differ on the target.
The Transfer edition also adds CABLE COPY over UART and a cable-only Flash 2M selection for cloning external Flash while excluding the device-specific calibration sector. Sender and receiver selections are validated before data is written.
This is a new protocol: both radios must run the same compatible firmware. See AirCopy.
The new MIX mode scans a saved selection of lists 01 to 24 as one combined set. Select MIX in ScList, press M to open the editor, toggle lists with M, and save with EXIT. The editor displays the number of selected lists, and at least one list must remain enabled.
During an active memory scan, entering 25 selects MIX; 00 continues to select ALL. See Scanning.
UV Studio v1.6.0 adds complete 2 MiB external-Flash backup and restore for Labs. Restoration preserves the device-specific calibration sector, skips identical 4 KiB sectors using CRC32 when supported, verifies every written sector, and reboots the radio when finished.
A new guided factory-software recovery verifies bundled images by size and SHA-256, restores a reconstructed external-Flash image while preserving calibration, then prompts for DFU mode and installs the matching UV-K1 or UV-K5 V3 stock firmware. The interface also groups calibration and boot-logo operations into clearer backup/restore or download/upload views.
These external-Flash tools require v6.1.0 Labs. See UV Studio, external-Flash backup and restore, and factory software restoration.
The release also adds the Snake, Rapid Roll, and Space Impact overlay games, plus fixes involving RF Log across configuration banks, overlay-app storage, wiped calibration, and DCS squelch tail handling.
v6.0.0 was released on 10 September 2026. It introduced four official editions, Multiboot and Multiconfig, the Labs overlay-app platform, reliable AirCopy, and independent FoxHunt and Beacon applications.
| Edition | Intended use | Additional features |
|---|---|---|
Fusion |
everyday use | balanced reference edition; recommended for most users |
FieldOps |
field and first-responder work | RescueOps, resident FoxHunt, and resident Beacon |
Transfer |
radio-to-radio data transfer | AirCopy and resident Beam |
Labs |
experimentation | RescueOps, AirCopy, and overlay apps including FoxHunt, Beacon, and Beam |
Fusion v6.0.0 no longer includes the specialized v5.x AirCopy, Beam, RescueOps, Fox Hunt / Beacon, or Breakout features. Choose the appropriate specialized edition when one of those capabilities is required.
The former combined FOX HUNT / BEACON action was split before the v6.0.0 release. FOX HUNT and BEACON are separate programmable actions, separate resident applications in FieldOps, and separate overlay apps in Labs.
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.
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.
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 AirCopy.
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 view, marked Labs only, 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.
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 AirCopy transfers, and is available in both the resident and overlay Beacon. See Beacon.
These changes were developed after v5.8.0 and released in v5.9.0.
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.
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 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.
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.
These changes are based on commits after the v5.7.0 tag in feature_update_v5.
Fusion builds add a programmable FOX HUNT / BEACON action with two complementary modes:
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.<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 the historical Fox Hunt / Beacon compatibility page. For current firmware, use the separate FoxHunt and Beacon pages.
These changes are based on commits after the v5.6.1 tag in feature_update_v5.
UV Studio provides a unified browser-based interface for radio viewing, control, maintenance, and recovery.
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 the browser-based companion for the Fusion firmware.
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 filtersF plus the navigation keys (UP / DOWN on UV-K5, or LEFT / RIGHT on UV-K1)See Advanced features and Button functions.
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 now has four choices instead of two:
KEYSKEYS + ACTIONSKEYS + PTTKEYS + ACTIONS + PTTACTIONS 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.
The firmware-side screen streaming code has been renamed internally from screenshot handling to UV Studio handling. Builds that enable the optional RX/TX-log UV Studio bridge can also stream recent RF-log rows to compatible viewer tooling.
See Advanced features.
These changes are based on the post-v5.5.0 commits in feature_update_v5.
Builds with screen-saver support add the SetSav menu.
Available modes:
OFF: no screen saverLOGO: show the stored boot logo as an idle screenLOGO+: show the stored boot logo with a scrolling effectMATRIX: show a matrix-style animated idle screenSetSav 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.
When POnMsg = LOGO, the startup logo mode can still keep the normal boot beep behavior.
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.
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.
The F+4 frequency-copy scanner screen now separates the search state and the result more clearly:
Search FreqSearch ToneScan CompleteScan FailedFreq: and Tone: detailsSee Scanning.
Screen-saver frames are synchronized to UV Studio, and screenshot handling has been optimized to reduce RAM usage and avoid stale chunks.
See Advanced features.
That release also included several behavior fixes and UI refinements:
8.33 kHz stepsCurrent builds can use the newer FAST scan engine for memory scan and ScnRng.
The SetScn menu selects between:
NORMAL: the conservative scan pathFAST: a faster path that pre-checks channels or range steps with RSSI before doing the full receive setupIn favorable conditions, ScnRng in FAST mode can scan around 150+ frequencies per second.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 transfers now include the VFO area used by features such as ScnRng, so scan-range boundary frequencies are replicated when copying settings.
See AirCopy.
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.SysInf, FM broadcast radio, and the spectrum analyzer UI were refined across recent builds.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.