PortaPack for HackRF One

Great product. Real, not a Chinese ripoff. Easy to work with and exactly what I expected. Hardest part was compiling the havoc firmware and that is not much of a challenge.

I waited a few days testing the hackrf before installing it into the portapack. Basic mechanical assembly is fairly easy and straightforward. However, installing the firmware may or may not be so easy. I'm using windows 7 and even though installing the drivers for pc use, updating the firmware was a little different. First. let me say that I have usb drivers installed for all kinds of devices and this can complicate matters and I suspect it did in my cases. And thats why I'm writing this review. The portapack works as described and you can easily load firmware for use once you have the right driver installed. I kept getting a failures to write due to the wrong driver being installed. You can see the screen showing no hackrf found to update.. I followed all the instructions online and in videos with the same result. What fixed it was going into windows device manager (btw, I used zadig software to install the driver/s)... and locating the hackrf as a usb device and DELETING the driver, not unistalling it, deleting it. Then I plugged the hackrf back into the pc and told the zadig software to install the windows driver and it found and installed the 'sharebrained.com' driver and all was well from then on, even using it as a sdr only... I hope this helps any who have this problem, don't give up, it's just a matter of the right driver.The procedures I describe here are well documented online if you search for hackrf firmware upgrade. It's a very nice tool and with the portapack, its portable and that can be a big plus in some area's. Good luck and have fun.

I'd give this 5 stars if it wasn't for the build quality/hole positioning. After installing this in the case I noticed that the top of the USB port of my HackRF was a little high but still pluggable if I plugged it just right. After a few weeks of use, the USB port just gave out and broke. It mostly was due to how I kept trying to plug it in lower than the actual port was located. Luckily, my HackRF is still in the replace period and I guess I will be taking a Dremel to the case while I wait for the replacement. Other than the case the screen and board are fantastic. Just the fact that the case caused the damage to the HackRF it gets the low rating.

The HackRF is a very powerful tool, but adding the Portapack with custom firmware (Portapack Havoc); makes you a portable radio magic wizard. Highly recommended, the developer Jared is very responsive to any questions. Buy Buy Buy!!!

It is an awesome product! The designer did a great job!

Okay stuff.

Good device. Can be used as multi-functional scanner. Easy to work (after some firmware tweaking) :-)

This thing is a great accessory to the hackRF