What are some things to do with the HackRF Portapack?

[Sloobot]

Hello everyone. I recently purchased a HackRF PortaPack device after watching many interesting YouTube videos of people using it to listen to various frequencies. I am curious to know what are some exciting things that I can do with this device. Any suggestions are welcome. For those who are interested, I am using the latest HackRF PortaPack H2 with the transparent case from SDRstore. Here is the link to where I purchased it: Assembled HackRF Portapack H2 HackRF One 1MHz to 6GHz SDR
Thank you.

 

[pinballwiz86]

You can use it listen to your local FM radio stations.

 

[dkcorlfla]

Hello everyone. I recently purchased a HackRF PortaPack device after watching many interesting YouTube videos of people using it to listen to various frequencies. I am curious to know what are some exciting things that I can do with this device. Any suggestions are welcome. For those who are interested, I am using the latest HackRF PortaPack H2 with the transparent case from SDRstore. Here is the link to where I purchased it: Assembled HackRF Portapack H2 HackRF One 1MHz to 6GHz SDR
Thank you.

That looks like quite a nice portable kit and being portable one of things it would work well on is getting close to very low power signals. For ideas maybe check out what the Flipper Zero people are doing. I do not own either but I believe the HackRF one can do everything the Flipper Zero can, maybe even more.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Hello everyone. I recently purchased a HackRF PortaPack device after watching many interesting YouTube videos of people using it to listen to various frequencies. I am curious to know what are some exciting things that I can do with this device

Welcome to the RR forums @Sloobot. Which Youtube videos did you watch? What do you feel they haven't covered for you as far as "things that you can do with this device"?

 

[Sloobot]

You can use it listen to your local FM radio stations.

What are some other things I could do? I am not really experienced

That looks like quite a nice portable kit and being portable one of things it would work well on is getting close to very low power signals. For ideas maybe check out what the Flipper Zero people are doing. I do not own either but I believe the HackRF one can do everything the Flipper Zero can, maybe even more.

Thank you I will search for more info on the internet. I heard the flipper zero can emulate rfid etc. Can the hackrf do that also?

Welcome to the RR forums @Sloobot. Which Youtube videos did you watch? What do you feel they haven't covered for you as far as "things that you can do with this device"?

I've seen only videos that review the product and thought that asking people that already know a lot of things can be faster

 

[Dirk_SDR]

What are some other things I could do? I am not really experienced

One option: you could download SDRSharp 1920 from here:

https://airspy.com/?ddownload=3130

... , unzip and copy the contents to a folder like C:/SDRSharp_1920 .
With your PortaPack you can receive everything from 1 MHz up to 6 GHz, control your PortaPack and watch everything on your PC monitor.

 

[BinaryMode]

The Flipper Zero is just a stupid toy in my opinion. You can do everything a Flipper Zero can in Kali with the aforementioned HackRF One. But why?! Unless you're a pentester or are trying to learn of the vulnerabilities out there to help better mitigate them it's all completely useless.

It's just like the Wi-Fi Pineapple. Nice and all, has its own cloud (I don't care for) but completely useless unless you're a pentester/system Admin. And with 802.11w you're not hacking crap... Well, there are other methods like a beacon storm or whatever...

To the OP, if you go to the RTL-SDR blog there's lots of blog posts on all kinds of cool stuff you can do. One project I've been meaning to do is monitor the TPMS transmissions of passing cars and build up a database of those cars to see who comes down the street at different times.. Be interesting I guess.

Oh, another thing you could do is hook that HackRF to a tablet and monitor ADS-B on the go. I did this at an airshow. Well, not on the property as scanners and whatnot were banned. LOL There's an App for this but I don't remember its name. I'm sure you could find it in your play store...

 

[dkcorlfla]

The Flipper Zero is just a stupid toy in my opinion. You can do everything a Flipper Zero can in Kali with the aforementioned HackRF One. But why?! Unless you're a pentester or are trying to learn of the vulnerabilities out there to help better mitigate them it's all completely useless.

Don't think it is completely useless as learning of vulnerabilities can be eye opening even for people not in the pen test business.

It's just like the Wi-Fi Pineapple. Nice and all, has its own cloud (I don't care for) but completely useless unless you're a pentester/system Admin. And with 802.11w you're not hacking crap... Well, there are other methods like a beacon storm or whatever...

To the OP, if you go to the RTL-SDR blog there's lots of blog posts on all kinds of cool stuff you can do. One project I've been meaning to do is monitor the TPMS transmissions of passing cars and build up a database of those cars to see who comes down the street at different times.. Be interesting I guess.

I have done this with a plain rtl-sdr (does not require the HackRF one) but it does require a good antenna (my 3 element UHF yagi was just enough) to get readings on traffic on the street just in front of my house. I live on a street that is the main entrance to a large high school and I found it interesting during the morning rush the tire pressures tended to be high. I think it was due to the frantic driving getting the brakes hot and that getting the tires hot.

The output of rtl-433 can be redirected into a text file and grep search run to find the ID so yes cars could be tracked.

Oh, another thing you could do is hook that HackRF to a tablet and monitor ADS-B on the go. I did this at an airshow. Well, not on the property as scanners and whatnot were banned. LOL There's an App for this but I don't remember its name. I'm sure you could find it in your play store...

I saw a youtube video by Tech Minds that went over the HackRF with the portable hat and it looks like the Portapack has an app already on it that does ADS-B

One last thing for the OP, if familiar with Linux you might want to check out Dragon OS. A decent laptop or desktop, Dragon OS and a HackRF one is amazing and a bit scary on what it can do. Almost endless!

 

[AndyZot]

The Flipper Zero is just a stupid toy in my opinion. You can do everything a Flipper Zero can in Kali with the aforementioned HackRF One. But why?! Unless you're a pentester or are trying to learn of the vulnerabilities out there to help better mitigate them it's all completely useless.

It's just like the Wi-Fi Pineapple. Nice and all, has its own cloud (I don't care for) but completely useless unless you're a pentester/system Admin. And with 802.11w you're not hacking crap... Well, there are other methods like a beacon storm or whatever...

To the OP, if you go to the RTL-SDR blog there's lots of blog posts on all kinds of cool stuff you can do. One project I've been meaning to do is monitor the TPMS transmissions of passing cars and build up a database of those cars to see who comes down the street at different times.. Be interesting I guess.

Oh, another thing you could do is hook that HackRF to a tablet and monitor ADS-B on the go. I did this at an airshow. Well, not on the property as scanners and whatnot were banned. LOL There's an App for this but I don't remember its name. I'm sure you could find it in your play store...

Confused by your statement, have you used them both? The HackRF does not have RFID, NFC or IRda.
It does surprise me how these devices are so often compared, they are quite different and serve different purposes, as my old mum would say, 'Horses for Courses', and you can very often do far more discreet work with the F0, so having both tools in your arsenal is a good thing.

 

[BinaryMode]

Confused by your statement, have you used them both? The HackRF does not have RFID, NFC or IRda.
It does surprise me how these devices are so often compared, they are quite different and serve different purposes, as my old mum would say, 'Horses for Courses', and you can very often do far more discreet work with the F0, so having both tools in your arsenal is a good thing.

Use GNURadio for signal processing flows.

Feast your eyes on Universal Radio Hacker to help reverse engineer the protocols. GitHub - jopohl/urh: Universal Radio Hacker: Investigate Wireless Protocols Like A Boss

Same for NFC

IRda obviously not.

The point is this: a real computer, the Great Scott Gadgets REAL HackRF One and software far out-beat a small toy. Pentesters don't use geek toys... I would be laughed out of the room if I used a Flipper Zero for Pentesting. Just sayin'.