Firmware 20190405

This release contains a few small fixes and some new features:

• HackRF mode now uses the PortaPack display! You can see the current state of the radio when operating the radio over USB from your computer.
• Better support for blue PortaPacks and their high-accuracy reference oscillator.
• Improved external clock reference detection.
• Fixes for some HackRF mode problems people have reported.
• Enhanced button scanning, which should handle sticky buttons better.
• Improvements in VAA "glitch" handling at power-up.
• Elimination of the manual HackRF CPLD update process. Your HackRF CPLD will never be out of date now.
• A whole lot of boring "technical debt" clean-up that won't be obvious to anybody but me. :-)

Installing

The Wiki documentation has separate firmware installation instructions for Linux/Mac OS users and for Windows users.

Reporting Bugs

If you find bugs, please report them in the "Issues" area of this GitHub project.

Firmware 20170808

This release is a small iteration from 20170720. If your PortaPack is working fine, there is no real reason to update. However, this release includes a Windows flash tool installer!

Changes

• Removed HackRF CPLD bitstream check, as it was reporting incorrectly, causing unnecessary concern among users.
• Cleaned up __SIMD32 macro and other compiler warnings.
• Small I2S (audio) tweaks.

Installing

The Wiki documentation has separate firmware installation instructions for Linux/Mac OS users and for Windows users.

Reporting Bugs

If you find bugs, please report them in the "Issues" area of this GitHub project.

Hashes

To verify validity of the firmware packages, compare against these hash values:

File	MD5	SHA256
portapack-h1-firmware-20170808.tar.bz2	b01786fb26dfddf733581c422c3adf52	61f3e12895e0c3388a702477273d24435b4b7f0459eeb97b69d2f902f5e9ed36
portapack-h1-firmware-20170808.zip	2d75db30c4d4b51a91e1aa8aace3f093	fe18ff1b061d20f42486ebcdac8e56f5e45ccafc0b28a414d6a8e0ed94d4136a
PortaPack.Firmware.Tool-20170808.exe	f4d7723c92d8b8ea59bb94a2a9d4596b	1840c8bcf855ab59c891c64672ceb7ef7fd28ada23ac50bb17e69844c89114b3

Firmware 20170720

The PortaPack is back! Hardware revision 20170522 is a significant change in hardware, and requires many changes to the firmware. This firmware release is recommended for all PortaPack users, and will auto-detect which hardware you have.

New and Improved

• PortaPack revision 20170522 support.
• SD peripheral timing was adjusted, based on oscilloscope measurements, to improve reliability and compatibility with different SD cards.
• Extra peripheral clocks turned off to reduce power consumption and electrical noise.

Installing

The Wiki documentation has separate firmware installation instructions for Linux/Mac OS users and for Windows users.

Reporting Bugs

If you find bugs, please report them in the "Issues" area of this GitHub project.

Hashes

To verify validity of the firmware packages, compare against these hash values:

File	MD5	SHA1
portapack-h1-firmware-20170720.tar.bz2	31c8cc3a1f85e579fdb1baf9f5d66cc6	d0f5a97f1ebd915018fea60e4b073819557bbee3
portapack-h1-firmware-20170720.zip	1e8b8d5265b7ddbb0ac7ad26288f1daa	dc453c45d88eed309548e30ae851c37c3f639081

Windows installer coming soon.

Firmware 20160728

Binaries removed due to hardware changes. Please only use release 20170720 or newer.

Happy Black Hat USA and DEF CON! Here's some new firmware to load up before you come to Vegas. You are coming to Vegas, right?!

This release focuses on capturing spectrum and demodulated audio. There's some nice TPMS upgrades, too.

No video run-through yet, I may not get to it until after DEF CON. Sorry!

New and Improved

• Capture: Records 500 kHz of spectrum to the micro SD card as complex data. Separate metadata file is written with tuner frequency and sampling rate.
• Capture: Records demodulated audio for AM, SSB, narrowband FM, and wideband FM to a WAV file on the micro SD card. In narrowband FM, audio is not recorded when no signal is present (squelch).
• TPMS: Added support for two flavors of on-off keyed (OOK) -- varieties of Schrader transponder, apparently used by Subaru and GMC (and others?).
• TPMS: Added band selection -- 315 MHz vs. 433.92 MHz.
• TPMS: Signal sensitivity improvements -- improved phase detector, wider OOK demodulation channel.
• ERT: Added "commodity type", which indicates the type of resource the meter is measuring.
• AIS, ERT, AIS: Add gain controls and RSSI/channel indicators.
• HackRF: CPLD bitstream check indicates if CPLD contents match the current HackRF released bitstream. Available under About menu, "HackRF CPLD".
• SD card: Diagnostics page displays SD card status and details, provides a speed test. Available under Debug -> SD Card.
• Touch calibration available via Setup -> Touch.
• Touch sensing improvements, should be more sensitive and responsive.
• Screen snapshot now saves to incrementing filename.

Bugs Fixed

• Audio codec reliability for some PortaPack units (also available in 20160222.1 release).

Documentation

I have not yet updated the Wiki documentation, but will get to it very soon!

Installing

The Wiki documentation has separate firmware installation instructions for Linux/Mac OS users and for Windows users.

Reporting Bugs

If you find bugs, please report them in the "Issues" area of this GitHub project.

Firmware 20160222

Binaries removed due to hardware changes. Please only use release 20170720 or newer.

It's been too long!

This release focuses on improving the audio receiver mode and implementing a few digital transponder receivers. Watch a YouTube demo of the firmware.

New Features

• SSB audio receiver modes, LSB and USB with 2.8kHz bandwidth. (Thanks argilo for getting me started on this!)
• Narrowband FM audio receiver supports multiple channel bandwidth and modulation combinations.
• AIS receiver, decodes signals from water-going vessels (boats!). Displays packet information, writes raw packets to micro SD card.
• ERT receiver, decodes signals from one type of utility "smart" meter. Displays packet information, writes raw packets to micro SD card.
• TPMS receiver, decodes signals from a few kinds of automotive tire pressure monitors. Displays packet information, writes raw packets micro SD card.
• Antenna port bias voltage can be enabled.
• Additional audio receiver tuning frequency step sizes.
• Screen capture saves to a PNG file on the micro SD card.
• Display sleep mode reduces power consumption by 300mW.
• Separate audio and digital receiver modes into separate sub-menus.
• Reworked baseband DSP filtering should improve receiver sensitivity.
• Narrowband and wideband FM audio de-emphasis improves sound quality.
• Debug views for clock generator, second IF, and audio codec.
• Architectural and code improvements, reduction in baseband code size.

Bugs Fixed

• Spectrum waterfall update/repaint artifacts at bottom of display due to timing vs. screen refresh.
• No spectrum waterfall during wideband FM mode.
• PPM value does not update between the setup menu and the receiver PPM value.

Documentation

The Wiki documentation has been updated to reflect the newest firmware and features.

Installing

The Wiki documentation has separate firmware installation instructions for Linux/Mac OS users and for Windows users.

Reporting Bugs

If you find bugs, please report them in the "Issues" area of this GitHub project.

Firmware 20150904

Binaries removed due to hardware changes. Please only use release 20170720 or newer.

Happy September! It's time for another PortaPack firmware release. This release includes a lot of bug fixes, and some handy new features.

New features:

• HackRF mode allows use of stock HackRF firmware without having to reflash.
• Wideband spectrum analyzer mode shows approximate 19MHz of spectrum at once.
• PPM adjustment allows fine-tuning of reference (tuning and sampling) frequencies (thanks argilo!).
• Tuning frequency and reference clock PPM adjustment persists during power-off.
• Git commit version of firmware shown in about menu.
• Builds are continuously integrated and available for download through Travis CI.
• Assorted UI tweaks and clean-up.
• Assorted code refactoring to make it easier to reuse and extend.
• More firmware and architecture notes in the WIki.
• OpenSCAD version of case design released.

A large number of bugs were addressed, including:

• Fix for insanely wrong tuning in 2.4GHz range.
• Waterfall sometimes goes into crazy scrolling mode.
• WFM waterfall freezes.
• Waterfall image does not reset when changing modulation modes.
• Idle touch scanning when no touch is occurring.
• Rearrange CPLD pins to eliminate use of DFU signal (which is a long, noisy trace).

if you find bugs, please report them in the "Issues" area of this GitHub project.

Firmware 20150722

Binaries removed due to hardware changes. Please only use release 20170720 or newer.

Firmware 20150722 beta.

Notable new features:

• Simple FM squelch implementation.
• Spectrum view now has frequency scale ticks and labels.

Notable fixes:

• Fixed second IF (MAX2837) RSSI bar graph updating.
• Mute audio in receiver non-audio modes (e.g. FSK).
• C++11 reference initializations style.