Hi everyone!
I’m interested in learning whether it’s possible to build a HackRF Pro using JLCPCB for PCB manufacturing and assembly, rather than assembling everything by hand.

I’d like to understand what’s involved in reproducing the hardware, including:

PCB fabrication: What files and specifications would be needed to have the board manufactured by JLCPCB?

Component sourcing: How difficult would it be to source the required components, especially RF components and any hard-to-find ICs?

PCB assembly: Would JLCPCB’s standard or extended component library cover most of the BOM, or would a significant number of components need to be sourced separately?

KiCad workflow: If I have the PCB design files, what would be the correct process for generating the Gerber files, BOM, and CPL (pick-and-place) files?

Practical feasibility: Are there any components, RF layout requirements, or manufacturing constraints that would make this particularly difficult or expensive?

I’m not looking to sell counterfeit devices or misrepresent anything as an official product. My goal is to understand the technical challenges and learn more about RF hardware manufacturing.

Has anyone attempted something similar, or has experience manufacturing complex SDR boards through JLCPCB?

Any advice, documentation, or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

hello! i really want to get the best hack rf available. i mean not only the pro version, i saw there are some special editions. if they are close enough ill just get the cheapest one. thank you!

The H4M Portapack seems to be sold out on OpenSourceSdrLab and even Amazon.
I wanted to buy it on there because i prefer having a better production quality and don't really trust a random AliExpress store...
Has it ever been sold out? Do we know when it could be back on sale?
I live in europe, i don't know if this is the same for you.

This will be my last time adverting here, since I will keep everything on the dc, youtube, and github repo, I tried my best, adding as many modes as possible, as always I hope you guys enjoy!
https://github.com/adswill/OnAir/releases/tag/v0.2.4

Hi everyone,

I am designing a pocket-sized RF device for a university project. It acts as an RF analyzer and a high-power signal generator for wireless protocol injection and co-channel interference testing (all testing is strictly confined to a lab Faraday cage - special lab). I am aiming for the best price/performance ratio rather than lab-grade precision. The entire system will be controlled by an STM32U575RGT6(mby another STM), paired with an ESP32-C3 acting as a modem.

I know this is a fairly large and complex post, and there might be some complete nonsense in my block diagram. I will be incredibly grateful for feedback on any single part of this!

RX Path (Analyzer):

1. Does this architecture make sense for a basic spectrum analyzer?
2. Should I use the AD8318 log amp for this, or should I consider transitioning to a different alternative along with a 14-bit MCU ADC for a better results?
3. Will the sweep rate of this setup be too slow to capture agile Wi-Fi or Bluetooth bursts? Since the analyzer relies on sweeping frequency steps, the overall speed will be tightly coupled to the MAX2871E PLL lock time and the MCU's tuning loop.

TX Path (Wideband Noise & Interference Generator):

The goal is to generate robust, wideband modulated signals and arbitrary waveforms to evaluate the resilience of Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth nodes against high-power in-band blocking signals (targeting up to +30 dBm output).

1. Will this dual-branch setup (FPGA -> 2x DACs -> ADL5375 -> PAs) effectively support the wideband multi-carrier signal generation required to match Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) channel bandwidths and Bluetooth frequency profiles?

2. Thermals & Power: Is it realistic to passively cool a 1W continuous RF output power inside a compact enclosure by using thermal vias to transfer heat to a passive heatsink on the back side of the PCB?

Thanks for your time and any advice!

Hey everyone! An update from my last post here.

I've been continuing work on this Rust based terminal SDR tool, the Bluetooth part in particular. It can analyse BLE advertising, LE Coded and classic Bluetooth activity with carrier frequency offset, drift, modulation measurements.

It has spectrum and waterfall views, RF and IQ measurement benches, FM/RDS analysis, IQ recording with SigMF support.

One thing which I try to get right is the indication that a reading should not be trusted. When the receiver is not providing valid data, sdrtop marks the readings stale, instead of putting some old values on the screen, as if they were valid.

I've used AI tools as a part of the development process, but the implementation is something that I actively work on and verify. I make the technical decisions, review, approve changes and run the tests. The code, tests, and measurement logic are available in the public repo, so you can inspect the actual implementation, not relying on my word about it.

The project is a work in progress. I'm currently debugging the LE Coded demodulator, and I'd really appreciate people trying out sdrtop on their own setup. Different radios and real-world conditions are likely to reveal things that I haven't seen on my bench.

If you give it a try, and something does not work, please, open an issue or let me know. Bugs, unexpected measurements, compatibility issues, and suggestions are all welcome. You don't need to have a solution, a reproducible problem report is already great.

It's receive only, no audio output by design.

Source code, installation instructions, demos:

https://github.com/musithang/sdrtop

Thanks!

I just bought the h4m pro from OpenSDRLab. I installed the version Pro 2.4 from the mayhem firmware repo, but when i booted the h4m, in the left bottom corner, its just says v2.4 instead of pro 2.4 . But when i install version pro 2.4 from the opensourceSDRlab repo, the bottom left corner says pro 2.4 , so that works. I just dont know why the opensourceSDRlab version works properly and the normal mayhem version doesnt. Can anyone help please?

Hello. On my brand new H4m Pro flashed freshly with 2.4.0 Pro version, I’m using a correctly formatted Sandisk SD Card. However, although it is brand new, the hackrf completely freezes when I jam a signal or transmit anything. I have been waiting for this device for a long time, and would hate to return it. Could someone please help me. I have already reflashed and reformatted my sd card multiple times, and switched the power source. The screen completely freezes on transmit and I need to fix this. I also calibrated it. Thank you

I did some work on it, added more modes, worked with people, took in support, and the more people see this and help the better. Hope you guys enjoy, and hope I can support almost everything!
https://github.com/adswill/OnAir

Hi all.

I'll try to be as descriptive but as concise as possible.

About a year and a half ago, I purchased a Portapack H4M with the R10C board. Loved it, still do!

I unfortunately broke the antenna connector (where it's soldered to the board) and after unsuccessfully attempting to repair it I figured "ehh, I'll just buy a new board"

I saw that there was a new version called the HackRF Pro.

I picked that up, it arrived today. I've been having pretty weird issues with it.

It's currently stuck in a nightly build, when I try to update it using the HackRF.App website, it uploads successfully to my HackRF but then I get a crash before it can finalize. So it's stuck on the nightly build.

When I attempt to receive anything, it picks up nothing, when I check the DFU menu to see what my radio is doing, it's basically showing no inbound so it's almost as if the radio isn't being recognized.

After that, if I click on an item in the Receive menu, such as Audio, I get a crash with Baseband Sync Fail.

I figured I'm doing something incorrectly, I just don't know what that thing is. I attempted a full reset but it won't enter into DFU mode properly. I followed the guide on the Mayhem GitHub but that doesn't seem to work for me. Each attempt to enter into DFU mode, the screen will go blank but there are no LEDs and it doesn't respond to my `hackrf` commands from the CLI.

I tried to include as many pictures and screenshots as possible (I even tried to put them in order) but I'm kinda running out of tools in my rather shallow toolbag, HAHA!

Any help that you can provide would be EPIC!

Thanks in advance!

I hate to ask for help but I've been searching....can someone send me some links so I can Learn how to config different apps in the portapack please?

I'm finding some good stuff but most is old or not specific to this device.

I just found https://freshmayhem.com which is a very good source for some settings. Most youtube vids talk like you're already familiar to the apps.....

Hate to say it but I'm a noob when it comes to the specifics!

Appreciate any help!

native on macos linux and windows, works best on macOS , the frame gen is at the moment the best one mac, you wont see much effect on windows nor linux but it will be implemented in the future. Hope you enjoy, and happy tv watching
https://github.com/adswill/OnAir/releases

Calling for your help, due to my location I don’t have any ATSC broadcasts and need sample transmissions in .iq and good quality to keep testing and improving the quality of the app, if anyone has a .iq file with a sample signal please link it in a Google Drive share link in the comments, all help is appreciated :)

And please, please, please, check out my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ads_will1 I will be posting all updates on there, as to not flood subredits with each update, for feature requests, bug reporting, for now if you need any help or want a feature, just dm plutobypluto on dc or join the dc (kinda basic dc I know) https://discord.gg/5Da7cDEYJ

windows (fixed version) demo, sorry about the weird cuts, I had to cut out some detected copyright shows: https://youtu.be/cjAh7Aqlhf8

After turning on Mayhem the splash screen has all the items on the top menu.

Usually you can scroll to the left all of the way to the HarckRF, Mayhem & Portapack (far left) then you can enter and Mayhem will open. Now for some reason the marker will not go far enough to the left and I have to touch or use a stylus to initiate opening the main page (Receive, Transmit etc)

Any ideas of something I can change to get back to normal? I've even tried hard reset.

EDIT: so many errors loading apps, how do I reset the whole device and re-flash and verify the files or apps?

I thought I should advert this one here, since I specifically designed this natively for hackrf, but basically if you want to watch some dvb-t2 now you can (once I release the program) here is the description:

demo video out now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oww5QWo4zK4

been working on this for maybe about a month, but let me emphasize by what I mean work, I have been trying to decode some dvb-t2 for about a month ever since I got my hack rf, however due to the lack of decoders available (there is one but its not the best) I decided to make one myself with the help of claude over the past 2 weeks or so, I also decided to implement ATSC dvb-t, t2-lite and DAB/DAB+ I do have plans to also add dvb-s and dvb-s2 but that is for the future, I have a huge list of features still left that I want to implement into the decoder itself, but all of the decoders do at the moment work and you can watch some wonderful dvb-t2, ATSC, etc (once the program comes out). On launch it will be native on macos and linux (sorry no windows for now) but windows will eventually come, maybe a week or 2 after the initial launch, including the network system. The promo video is attached and once I can finish this and personally say its fine and works good I will release, dont have a date yet but expect it sometime next week
Also I dont want to be hearing anything ai slop, I get it was ai made, just go on with your day please, if you dont like that its ai made, dont come in the comment sections to bully me about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icm5K3hlNsA

Hello.

I have forked SDR++, improved the Android interface and hopefully fixed the crashes on Android when trying to open HackRF hardware. Would you guys test it and let me know?

https://github.com/bubnikv/sdriak/releases/tag/nightly

I released my SDR++ fork at google play and I received many crash reports of the google play released OLD build, thus I tried to fix, but I don't own the hardware. However the fix was similar I did to RTLSDR, so I expect it will work.

This is the old build, don't test with HackRF. It will be renamed to SDRIAK on request from SDR++ author to clearly differentiate from the upstream pureness.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ok1iak.sdrpp

73, Vojtech OK1IAK

I picked up one of those cheap AliExpress USB-C "RF-Power-Meter-V5.0" dongles (STM32 + AD8317, labelled 100 kHz–10 GHz, 0 to −60 dBm) to check the output of my HackRF. The hardware is fine for the price, but the vendor software is Windows-only and pretty bare, so I wrote my own.

**Repo:** https://github.com/arsscriptum/rf-powermeter-assistant

Demo (HackRF One sending a CW tone at 1310 MHz, TX gain stepped up and down): https://github.com/arsscriptum/rf-powermeter-assistant/blob/master/img/demo.gif

**What it does**

- Live dBm and watts readout, peak hold, noise-floor tare, min/max/avg stats

- Rolling monitor chart (10 s to 15 min) with max trace and peak-hold line

- Scope-style sweep view of the 500-sample blocks the meter streams: two markers (ΔT, 1/ΔT, ΔdB), Auto/Normal/Single trigger, timebase K01–K18, CSV/PNG export

- Sets the band-calibration frequency and attenuation offset, reads them back to confirm, and re-applies them on reconnect (the meter forgets them when you unplug it)

- Threshold event log and a CSV logger

- Demo mode with a simulated meter that speaks the real protocol, so you can try it without the hardware

It's C++17 / Qt (6, or 5.15), builds on Windows and Linux. On Windows the build script can use the Qt that comes with radioconda, so if you already run GNU Radio from radioconda you only need Visual Studio. There's also a PowerShell/WinForms version that runs with no build at all.

Don't know what happened but now when I turn on the HackRF Pro r1.2.1 and Mayhem Signature-Edition PortaPack H4M Pro there is no "Receive" group!

It's been working all day and I gave it a break and then turned it on and noticed no Receive!

I went to https://hackrf.app/ and ran the update again to most stable but Receive is still not there. Did I hide it from myself??

Hello, I have been recently interested in DVB-T2 since I got my new hackrf and previously with my rtl-sdr v4 I couldnt decode it due to the sample rate limitations, from what I can find online there is only one viable windows decoder for dvb-t2 that also has a nice gui, I seem to be getting "something" but not enough and was wondering if anybody could give some tips or possibly record a video of themselves using this software, I cant find anything online regarding this decoder nor any examples, so I cant tell what I am doing is correct or not. One issue I have encountered, is it seems the program auto adjusts the frequency, and even a 1hz shift causes all of the demodulators constellations, etc to reset in a way, I am getting a reasonably good signal (with some multi path fading) but it should in theory be enough to decode, as the QAM shows a snr of 21db, and from I can find online I only need about 16db. I did try re adjusting my antenna arround (dipole) adjusting the lengths, but nothing seems to help. One thing I can confirm is its 100% dvb-t2, there was some confusion before, since my country doesnt really have any documentation regarding it, and from I could find online it seems to be "dead" but I can 100% confirm this is dvb-t2.

me strugling for 13 minutes to get this to work