Langstone V3 now supports HackRF One

[g4eml]

As clones of the HackRF One are now becoming available from Ali-Express for well under £100 I decided to get one and have been working on adding support for it to Langstone V3.

I have just released this update to Github https://github.com/g4eml/Langstone-V3

The main changes for the HackRF version are as follows....

The HackRF does not support Duplex operation, So the Satellite mode which allowed simultaneous receive and transmit has been removed.

The HackRF works down to 1MHz. Performance on HF may not be great but it does work to some extent.

Several new settings have been added to control the HackRF Tx and Rx amplifiers and gain controls. The HackRF does not have an automatic Rx gain control like the Pluto so you may need to adjust the Rx gain manually.

My initial testing suggests the overall performance of the HackRF is not quite as good as the Pluto. There are more spurious out of band mixer products and the receiver is not as sensitive.

Langstone V3 is intended to run on the Raspberry Pi 5. The Pluto version will (just) run on a Raspberry Pi 4 by commenting out the line

dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d

in file /boot/firmware/config.txt

Unfortunately it looks like the Raspberry Pi 4 struggles with the HackRF version as it stands.

Colin G4EML

[JA1SYK]

Thanks Colin for your update.
My HackRF One is working by LangstoneV3 on the Raspberry Pi 5.
Hiro JA1SYK

[g6hfs]

Hi,

Does v3 allow sat duplex operation on lsb/usb with adalm pluto, pi4 and portsdown 4

Brian

[g4eml]

The Langstone V3 Pluto version still supports satellite duplex mode. It is really intended to be used with a Pi5 and is not integrated with Portsdown.

If you are using Portsdown or a Pi4 then there is no benefit in moving to Langstone V3 at this time. It doesn't offer anything extra for most people.

Colin G4EML

[g6hfs]

Hi Colin,

I asked about v3 because v2 with my pluto the dup function does not seem to work, if am,fm selected the dup button is displayed but disapears when usb,lsb selected, so how does duplicate sat function?.

Brian

[g4eml]

Sat function is designed to work with QO100 and is enabled when you program in the Tx and Rx offsets needed to drive a QO100 transverter. SAT appears on the top line and a new 'Moni' button appears that allows Rx whilst transmitting. The mode is triggered by having both Tx and Rx offsets programmed and for them to be different.

Colin G4EML

[arthur21]

I have Langstone V3 running well with a HackRF one but I have failed to get the 7inch screen display to invert.
In /boot/firmware/config.txt I have found the line lcd=2 but changing it lcd=1 does not change the display.
Arthur
G4CPE

[g4eml]

The line should be
lcd_rotate=2
That line is added by the install script.
The original rotation would be
lcd_rotate=0 or just remove the line completely.

There are some comments online that this only works with a genuine raspberry pi touchscreen.

Colin G4EML

[arthur21]

Hi Colin
thanks for the reply the line lcd_rotate=2 has been changed to lcd_rotate=0 with no change. removing that line also fails to rotate the display.
The display is the Raspberry pi official 7 inch touch display from Pi Hut.
If I run the display on Bookworm Desktop the screen invert option works perfectly.
The receive side of V3 is very good , I have not used the TX function yet I need to make filters and amps which will be fun Hi
If the display cannot be rotated I will have to redesign the build to invert the screen.
Thanks
Arthur
G4CPE

[g4eml]

Strange, it worked fine for me when I published it.
Are you running this on a pi4 or a pi5?
Also did you build exactly as described in the Wiki using the recommended Lite version of the OS?

Raspberry pi may of course have changed something..

Colin.