r/hackrf

Hi!

Just getting into the RF hobby and my Portapack is scheduled to arrive tomorrow! What’s the first thing I should do after setup?! So excited!!

Hi everyone,
Not sure if this is exactly the right place, but I’ll give it a try 🙂

I graduated in September with a master's degree in electrical engineering. My program was fairly broad, but I specialized in my thesis on free-space optical communications (atmospheric turbulence, laser propagation, fiber injection, adaptive optics, etc.).

My job isn’t technical at all and honestly bores the hell out of me. I really want to dive back into telecommunications because it interests me and I don’t want to forget what I know. During my studies, I focused a lot on theory and not much on practical work, so I’m looking to fix that now.

What would you recommend as a starting point for getting into practical RF work? There’s so much different equipment and so many different SDRs out there that I don’t know where to begin...

I can invest some money to get started. Let’s say max €300–400 to start with, unless you tell me I’m missing out on something amazing that’s only slightly more expensive.

Thanks in advance for your help!! ☺️ I’m all ears for your advice and feedback!

EDIT:
As for my interests, they’re pretty broad:

I’d really like to explore atmospheric (and ionospheric) effects, for example by analyzing GNSS signals. I’m not entirely sure how feasible that is with relatively inexpensive SDR equipment though — my thesis was mostly simulation-heavy and quite theoretical.

On a more hands-on side, my roommate (who’s an RF engineer) and I would love to start building RF hardware (antennas, RF PCBs, maybe amateur radio gear). We’ve got the theoretical background, but we’re clearly lacking practical experience.

We’re also considering getting our ham radio license.

Hey everyone! 👋

I’ve been working on a project and wanted to share it with the community: I created a new website specifically for hosting custom Mayhem standalone applications for the HackRF PortaPack.

You can check it out here: PortaPack App Repo (apps and the website is open source!)

Right now, it’s stocked with a bunch of games (like a Bomberman clone, retro racing, safe cracker, and a space invaders/centipede hybrid) and some prank apps.

How to use it: It’s super simple! Just download the .ppmp file of the app you want and copy it directly to the /APPS folder on your PortaPack's SD card. No complex flashing required.

What's next? This is just the beginning! I have more new apps in the pipeline that will be added to the site.

I’d love to hear what you guys think, and I am open to requests. If you have any cool ideas for new apps, games, or else you’d like to see on the PortaPack, come hang out and let me know on the Mayhem Discord or share it in comments. Sadly the standalone apps can't reach the radio interface so for now only "radioless" app ideas are implementable.

Let me know if you encounter any bugs or have any questions. Enjoy! 📡🎮

edit: edited the url to the official hackrf.app subdomain: https://apps.hackrf.app/

Does anyone here on r/hackrf own the openSourceSDRLab PortaRF. I am am looking for an opinion of someone who has used for a while. Everything I find is comments on the prerelease version.

Thanks,

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a custom firmware project I've been working on. While contributing to the main PortaPack Mayhem firmware, I wanted to experiment with a build dedicated entirely to RTL433. The result is Porta-433.

It’s an early alpha release, but it kinda works and I’m ready to get some feedback on it!

What is it? Porta-433 is a stripped-down custom firmware for the PortaPack platform. It’s built on the Mayhem foundation, but I intentionally removed most of the standard Mayhem applications to keep it lightweight and focused squarely on parsing and decoding supported RTL433 signals right on the device.

Key Details:

• RTL433 Support: Parses and decodes supported RTL433 signals directly (in theory, all of them).
• Easy Web Flashing: You can flash the custom Porta-433 image straight from your browser using the familiar workflow at hackrf.app.
• Painless Revert: If you decide you want your regular apps back, just go to hackrf.app. and re-flash the latest Mayhem Stable or Nightly.

Known Limitations (It is an Alpha!) Please keep in mind that this is highly experimental and actively changing. RTL433 was originally designed to run on a PC, so squeezing it into the PortaPack comes with constraints. Because of the limited memory and computing power, it might drop valid samples or only catch the nth repetition of a signal. Furthermore, fitting all the RTL433 data onto the small PortaPack screen is a tight squeeze.

A huge thank you to the Mayhem, RTL433, and HackRF teams and contributors—this wouldn't be possible without their work.

You can check out the details and grab the code from the repo here: https://github.com/htotoo/porta-433

You can go to the releases part, download the ppfw.tar, and flash.

PRs are welcome! (Note: If your change is a general firmware fix and not specifically related to RTL433, please submit it upstream to the main Mayhem project).

Use it at your own risk, but let me know what you think!

https://preview.redd.it/k181lc5xh31h1.png?width=240&format=png&auto=webp&s=f3c4bc35fa8643cca6e43ff2ecc5210a2e24a419

Would the h4m allow you to pinpoint the location of an ELT signal? For those unaware, its an emergency tone transmitted on 121.5. These are sometimes inadvertently activated on the airport i work at and im wondering if I could drive around with the h4m and figure out which aircraft the signal is coming from to notify the owner.

Can the Hackrf H4M tell you the frequency median for an antenna? Mine came with like 5 but don't know which one is which

Living in Japan and wondering if anyone has experience ordering H4M from overseas. I have a few RFI’s.

1. How long was shipment?

2. I saw on OpenSource website that shipment comes from China, US or EU. Do features differ pending shipping location?

3. I’ve seen on a few available in different “shop” apps and websites. OpenSource has one for $185. Lab401 selling all in one package for $345. I saw a few posts about Alibaba and now I’m getting skeptical. Are these legit?