HackRF One

Awesome bit of kit from GSG, you’ll need to spend some time to understand what it can do and how to stay within the law if you’re upping the TX strength but well worth it.

Very good product

It is a great product, does all it should do and much more

I was attracted to the device because of the transmit capability, potential flexibility and wide bandwidth but I struggled with the receive side from the day I got it. While it sort of worked, it was generally very insensitive - to the point of being 90% useless. The RF amp (14dB gain) just further attenuated any signals that were there! Must be something I'm doing wrong! After a lot of time with different SDR packages and quite bit of head scratching, I bought a NooElec RTL-SDR dongle and this completely outshone the HackRF in all receive aspects apart from bandwidth and top frequency coverage. Almost certainly my HackRF was a dodgy/deaf one as there are mostly good reviews (mostly) about it - and, surely, you couldn't put something this bad into the marketplace. Minor points, but for an apparently sensitive RF device and costing nearly £300, it came with the crappiest USB lead I've seen in this class. And, while you might not need it nowadays, there is no documentation of any kind in the box - just what's written on the outside. I thought about a replacement, however, a little research reveals some discussion about fragility of the RF front end components - even on the GreatScott website. A search shows these seem to be obsolete and scarce/unobtainable now. Without doubt, mine was broken. Your mileage might vary and if it works it's probably a really good device. But given the fragility, obsolescence of repair components and generally naff approach to the presentation, I'm unsure that it represents good value. So while I would like to have reviewed this differently - only 1 star. Mine is on its way back to Amazon.

perfect product

I bought this along with the ANT500 antenna because I was doing a lot of research on RF communication. Originally, I had a couple of sub £20 RTL-SDR dongles. I thought of this as an upgrade and the ability to transmit would be useful on the odd occasions to test. This is the most disappointing product I have purchased in a long time. I am sure it excels in projects beyond the boundaries of what I am doing (I cannot think of what they would be) but the reception capabilities of this were far worse than my sub £20 dongles. RF tests that I was doing with the dongle could not be detected by this unit. Even when I did get reception, over 50% was corrupted dispite playing with all the settings I could find. Transmission worked to some extent but very short distance (less than a couple of metres). Frankly, I cannot really see any advantages of this device over the sub £20 RTL-SDR dongles except it does look quite nice and professional. But for something costing 10 times more than the dongles, I was expecting at least the same performance (ideally better) but not far worse. I can see people rave about this device but unless mine was faulty, I cannot see what it's unique selling point is considering the abysmal reception performance for an SDR. If you just need to examine RF packets over a broad frequency range, save yourself an awful lot of money and purchase one of the many SDR dongles available for a tenth of the price.

This is my second SDR unit and I bought it because of the expansion and the range of possibilities that it potentially provides. Although there are cheaper boards out there and even Chinese ones for a fraction of the price of this unit, I purchased the Hackrf in respect and courtesy of Mike Ossmann who has provided a wealth of knowledge base documnets and educational videos availabe for free to everyone. As for the unit, there are still room for improvements and upgrades: If you purchase the board, I recommend that you also buy the EMF shield add-on as it is a necessity. The original enclosure is not a metal shield but rather a very nice molded plastic so covering the RF I/O would improve the overall performance. The 8 bit resolution and dependency on the onboard generic Clock can also be a downside- although the add-on Cristal Clock module with a claimed 0.5 ppm accuracy can solve that problem (it is a rather pricy add-on board though). The RF gain can also be an issue unless you know what you are doing! Don't expect a decent performance out of the box and as is. You should play with the RF side to get the desired performance. Other than the above, the unit is one of the best out there. Even if you are a beginner, this will help you get into the realm of SDR- provided that you are prepared for hours of learning, studying and practicing. The alternative package that Nooelec is offering with an antenna and some SMA connectors are not worth it at all! It is an expensive combination for trade reasons! You can buy the connectors for under £10 and the offered antenna is a basic one for under £10 too! Overall, this a great gadget an I recommend it for those wh have a good knowledge of electronics and RF. Well done Michael Ossmann!

I've had 3 of these in the last year, first 2 the RX amp failed. The 3rd it was the TX amp that failed. It really isn't worth the money considering how fragile they are. Worked well with the portapack, but if you're just exploring RF then a £20 dongle will suffice. Only get this if you need to do some stuff with gnu radio etc or want to put it in a portrapack.