RadioCloud
VUURWERK
Custom firmware that turns a $30 Quansheng UV-K5 into a radio that listens, adapts, and responds like equipment ten times its price.
VUURWERK is Afrikaans for fireworks.
See It In Action
Power on a VUURWERK radio and, after the boot banner, this is your home screen:
+--------------------------------+
| [Q|||] [F] [BATT##] | <- status bar: signal quality, F key,
| | battery (live even during TX)
| A 146.520.00 FM H N | <- VFO A: frequency, modulation,
| | TX power, narrow/wide
| .:|.||:..|,.:|||,.:.|..:||:., | <- bandscope: live RF activity
| | on your frequency (F+7)
| B 446.000.00 FM M | <- VFO B
| |
| 12.5kHz N FM | <- context line: step, bandwidth, mode
+--------------------------------+
Stock firmware shows two frequencies and a battery icon. VUURWERK adds a live bandscope showing who is transmitting nearby, a signal-quality meter, and a context-aware bottom line that changes with what the radio is doing. When a signal comes in:
| RX S7 -65dBm Q:3 F | <- S-level, strength, quality, classifier
That trailing F is the signal classifier telling you this is a fast-rise FM
signal (N = SSB, S = carrier, ~ = noise). The radio worked that out by
measuring how quickly the signal appeared.
And this is the headline instrument -- the Voice-Seeking Spectrum (F+5, then
STAR until the corner reads VOX):
+--------------------------------+
| -130/-50 [BATT##] | <- status bar: dB range, battery
| 146.552.50 FM VOX | <- listening frequency + mode label
| . . . . . | <- top ticks: every hop-eligible bin
| # | |
| +--------------+ | | full bar = strong voice (75+)
| _.__| LOCKED |__|_,____ | <- LOCKED banner flashes on PTT
| +--------------+ |
| ...:....|....:...^,:....|....: | <- tick rail + peak arrow (^)
| 145.760 >80.0k 148.960 | <- span start, step, span end
+--------------------------------+
Only bins that score as human voice draw bars. UP/DOWN hops between them. PTT locks on. EXIT carries the frequency home to your VFO. No other UV-K5 firmware does this.
What Changes When You Flash This
You'll find voices, not just signals
VOX Voice-Seeking Spectrum scores every frequency bin for voice probability instead of raw strength, so carriers and birdies stay flat while conversations light up. The full hunt loop:
SWEEP ----> voice found ----> LISTEN ----> UP/DOWN seek next voice
^ | |
| voice gone (2 strikes) | PTT --> LOCKED (stay put)
+-----------------------------+ | |
| UP/DOWN releases
EXIT +- LOCKED? -+
| |
back on your frequency CARRIES
VFO, as it was to your VFO
- Seek: UP walks to the next voice above the cursor, DOWN below. No voice that way? The keys fall through to normal band navigation, so they always move you. Hold a key and the radio patrols the band, auto-stopping on voice.
- Lock: tap PTT while listening -- a
LOCKEDbanner flashes and the radio parks there through any pause in the conversation, squelch open. - Carry-over: exit while locked (in frequency mode) and the locked frequency becomes your VFO frequency. You leave the spectrum already tuned, ready to answer.
Deterministic spectrum exit. Leaving the spectrum always lands you back on your own VFO, on your own frequency, hearing normally -- lock or no lock, dual watch or not.
Adaptive scan pre-checks each channel in ~30 ms and only dwells on channels showing energy, so scanning an empty band runs 2-3x faster with weak-signal sensitivity unchanged. Tone-coded memory channels get a longer dwell so the decoder actually has time to confirm the tone.
Bandscope (F+7) keeps a live RF activity strip on the main screen, with peak dots and a noise-floor line, without interrupting audio.
You'll sound better to everyone listening
TX Compressor rides your mic gain in real time -- transparent at normal speaking level, smoothly catching shouts and close talking.
CTCSS Lead-In mutes the mic for the first 150 ms of every transmission so the repeater decodes your tone before your first syllable. No more clipped words.
TX Soft Start ramps power on an S-curve over 60 ms, killing the key-up click other radios hear.
You'll get out of trouble with one gesture
F+EXIT = reset to simplex. A VFO that lights the green RX light but stays
silent almost always has a leftover setting: an RX tone waiting for a match, a
repeater offset, reverse, a scrambler. F+EXIT wipes the active VFO back to a
clean simplex state (tones cleared, offset cleared, reverse off, scrambler
off, FM) and shows a SIMPLEX toast. Memory channels are never touched.
deaf VFO? [F] + [EXIT] --> +---------+
green light | SIMPLEX | clean slate:
but silent +---------+ RX = TX, FM, no tones
You'll hear stations you couldn't before
Smart squelch scores every signal for voice probability using three hardware measurements at once -- it opens for voices and stays shut for pagers, glitches, and noise, and it can ease the threshold for a weak voice before the squelch even opens.
FM Gain Staging adapts the receiver front end to signal strength in real time, so strong signals come in clean and weak ones are not buried.
Squelch Tail Elimination mutes the "KSSHHH" at the end of the other station's transmission -- for both CTCSS and DCS.
You'll spend less time in menus
One-press F-key shortcuts for everything you change often, each confirmed by a 1-second toast:
F+1 BAND cycle bands F+6 POWER LOW / MID / HIGH
F+2 A/B swap VFOs F+7 BANDSCOPE on / off
F+3 VFO/MR freq <-> memory F+8 REVERSE repeater reverse
F+4 SQUELCH level 0-9 F+9 CALL FREQ jump to calling freq
F+5 SPECTRUM full analyzer F+0 MODE FM / AM / USB
F+EXIT RESET TO SIMPLEX
A categorized menu (7 groups, number keys jump straight in) with a plain-language hint line that explains cryptic items while you browse.
It looks after itself
A boot-time health probe checks the transceiver chip and calibration EEPROM at every power-on and reports faults in plain text. The battery indicator stays live during TX and a sag tracker warns you when your pack is tiring. The flashlight auto-extinguishes after 30 minutes so a pocket press never drains your pack overnight. The backlight fades out instead of cutting to black and stays lit while you are actually talking or listening.
You can program it from your computer
CHIRP support via a community-contributed driver -- read and write channels, side-keys, and settings without flashing back to stock. See chirp/README.md for the one-time setup. Driver contributed by mjwgeek.
What Makes This Different
Stock firmware is open-loop: you set fixed values and hope they work. VUURWERK is closed-loop: the radio measures what is actually happening -- noise floor, signal strength, audio level, signal type -- and adjusts itself in real time. It's the difference between holding the wheel straight with your eyes closed and actually watching the road.
Original innovations. Intelligence-based squelch with voice-probability scoring, voice-seeking spectrum analysis with PTT lock and frequency carry-over, FM adaptive gain staging, universal squelch-tail elimination, real-time TX audio compression. These aren't ports of existing features. See LICENSE for the original-contributions registry and FEATURES.md for the technical deep dive.
Flash It In 60 Seconds
[download] --> [radio off] --> [hold PTT + power on] --> [LED lit?]
|
[power cycle] <-- [flash ~10s] <-- [pick .packed.bin] <-- [cable in,
| in Chrome flasher Chrome open]
VUURWERK
boot screen
- Download
vuurwerk-v1.5.0.packed.binfrom therelease/folder - Turn the radio off
- Hold PTT and turn it on -- the flashlight LED confirms bootloader mode
- Connect your programming cable (standard Kenwood-style 2-pin)
- Open https://egzumer.github.io/uvtools/ in Chrome
- "Select firmware file" -> choose the
.packed.bin-> "Flash firmware" - Wait about 10 seconds, disconnect, power cycle
Chrome is required (the Web Serial API doesn't work in Firefox or Safari). Your channels and settings are preserved -- only the firmware changes. Full details and troubleshooting: FLASHING.md.
Hardware Compatibility -- UV-K5 V1 Only
VUURWERK only supports the original Quansheng UV-K5 V1 (DP32G030 processor). The newer V2 (PY32F030) and V3 (PY32F071) boards are not compatible; flashing them produces a radio that does not boot (recoverable with the right stock firmware, but avoid the trip).
How to check: remove the battery and read the board label. V2 and V3 boards are marked; no marking means V1 -- the one VUURWERK supports.
If you flashed the wrong hardware, recover with K5TOOL, which supports all UV-K5 versions.
Built By
Firmware design and architecture: James Honiball (KC3TFZ) Based on: Egzumer, with credits to DualTachyon, OneOfEleven, fagci
See LICENSE for full attribution and the complete list of VUURWERK-original contributions.
Support VUURWERK
VUURWERK is free and built nights and weekends by one operator on a $30 radio. If the spectrum found you a conversation, or F+EXIT rescued a deaf VFO, you can keep the bench powered and keep going on this:
Reading this on a desktop? Scan with your phone.
Prefer crypto, or want to help without spending a cent? See DONATE.md for XRP and the free ways to support the project.
Documentation
- WHATS_NEW.md -- What's new in v1.5.0, with pictures
- USER_MANUAL.md -- Button-by-button operator manual with screen mockups for every feature
- FEATURES.md -- Full technical documentation
- WHAT_VUURWERK_DOES.md -- Plain-English guide to every feature
- ACCESS_MAP.md -- Feature access cheat sheet
- FLASHING.md -- Flashing guide with troubleshooting
- BUILD.md -- Building from source
- chirp/ -- CHIRP driver (community-contributed by mjwgeek)
- CHANGELOG.md -- Version history
- DONATE.md -- Support the project
- DEDICATION.md -- In memory of ZS6NE
License
VUURWERK is dual-licensed.
Before you borrow code: the VUURWERK-original features listed in LICENSE are licensed as a package with the complete firmware. Taking an individual feature, algorithm, or module into another project or product requires written permission (a commercial license) from the author. Read the notice at the top of LICENSE first.
The complete VUURWERK firmware is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3. The upstream Egzumer / DualTachyon code it builds on is licensed under the Apache License 2.0, which is compatible with GPL v3; upstream files keep their Apache-2.0 notices. You may flash it, fork it, modify it, and redistribute the complete firmware under GPL v3 terms.
VUURWERK-original algorithms and modules (listed in the LICENSE contributions registry) are additionally protected by a commercial-license requirement for any use outside the complete VUURWERK firmware. Extracting a VUURWERK-original file, porting a VUURWERK-original algorithm to another platform, or incorporating VUURWERK-original code into a separate project requires a commercial license obtained in writing from James Honiball (KC3TFZ).
Commercial licensing inquiries: [email protected]
Stock upstream code (Egzumer, DualTachyon, OneOfEleven, fagci) remains under its original license terms as marked in each file.
Dedicated to George Thomas Honiball, ZS6NE (Silent Key). He is a silent key now, but not in and through me.
VUURWERK (Afrikaans: fireworks) -- because your radio should light up.
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