[Hackrf-dev] Updating CPLD and firmware broke my HackRF?

sck at nogas.org sck at nogas.org
Wed Sep 2 14:15:07 EDT 2015


Good morning all...

Yes, I just joined the mailing list and normally I'd lurk for a while and
absorb things but.... You see I have a problem...

I have one of the Kickstarter HackRF units and have a portapack H1
installed in the portapack metal case.

Recently, I have been having issues that when I tuned to WFM stations the
frequency was off significantly. I.E. in order to tune to 95.7 MHz  WFM I
had to tune to 97.135 MHz to receive the station. I wasn't picking up
anything near the 95.7 MHz frequency, and last month I stopped by the
DefCon Portapack Demo Lab to try to see if there was something wrong with
my hackrf or what. But, the crowd was quite overwhelming and then I could
not get into the Wireless Village (due to the line for the talks), so
missed out there as well. Bad luck for me.

So, recently I was thinking that maybe I needed to upgrade my HackRF
firmware and CPLD as described at
https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf/wiki/Updating-Firmware (and
https://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/5/ ) to make sure that something wasn't
out of sync between the two... Seems simple enough, I've updated my
firmware a bunch of times, but not my CPLD... Hmmm, that could be an
issues since Michael Ossmann posted "With new firmware and old CPLD I
would expect the spectrum to be inverted in some cases.  A fixed frequency
offset would be puzzling unless it is a misinterpretation of inverted
spectrum (which could be an easy mistake to make)." at
https://pairlist9.pair.net/pipermail/hackrf-dev/2014-December/000921.html
So, that does sounds promising!

So, last night I downloaded the updated firmware 2015.07.2 from
https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf/releases/download/v2015.07.2/hackrf-2015.07.2.zip
and installed that on my hackrf/portapack with the following commands on
my Mac (using MacPorts)... [which I just re-did on a separate Mac this
morning to document for this email]

  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:~ skennedy6$ cd ~/Downloads/
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:Downloads skennedy6$ wget
https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf/releases/download/v2015.07.2/hackrf-2015.07.2.zip
  --2015-09-02 11:10:47-- 
https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf/releases/download/v2015.07.2/hackrf-2015.07.2.zip
  Resolving github.com (github.com)... 192.30.252.130
  Connecting to github.com (github.com)|192.30.252.130|:443... connected.
  HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
  Location:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/github-cloud/releases/3681392/4671fc74-31f0-11e5-997e-57d6d1c54889.zip?response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3Dhackrf-2015.07.2.zip&response-content-type=application/octet-stream&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAISTNZFOVBIJMK3TQ&Expires=1441221047&Signature=9%2BCm4dY2JwreBFOeE5HDKHchLk0%3D
[following]
  --2015-09-02 11:10:47-- 
https://s3.amazonaws.com/github-cloud/releases/3681392/4671fc74-31f0-11e5-997e-57d6d1c54889.zip?response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3Dhackrf-2015.07.2.zip&response-content-type=application/octet-stream&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAISTNZFOVBIJMK3TQ&Expires=1441221047&Signature=9%2BCm4dY2JwreBFOeE5HDKHchLk0%3D
  Resolving s3.amazonaws.com (s3.amazonaws.com)... 54.231.66.104
  Connecting to s3.amazonaws.com (s3.amazonaws.com)|54.231.66.104|:443...
connected.
  HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
  Length: 15831370 (15M) [application/octet-stream]
  Saving to: ‘hackrf-2015.07.2.zip.1’

  hackrf-2015.07.2.zip.1               
100%[===========================================================================>]
 15.10M   684KB/s   in 23s

  2015-09-02 11:11:10 (677 KB/s) - ‘hackrf-2015.07.2.zip.1’ saved
[15831370/15831370]

  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:Downloads skennedy6$ unzip hackrf-2015.07.2.zip
  Archive:  hackrf-2015.07.2.zip
     creating: hackrf-2015.07.2/
     creating: hackrf-2015.07.2/firmware-bin/
        [... lines deleted for brevity...]
    inflating: hackrf-2015.07.2/hardware/bubblegum/bubblegum.net
    inflating: hackrf-2015.07.2/COPYING
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:Downloads skennedy6$ cd hackrf-2015.07.2
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:hackrf-2015.07.2 skennedy6$ sudo port upgrade hackrf
  --->  Scanning binaries for linking errors
  --->  No broken files found.
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:hackrf-2015.07.2 skennedy6$ cd firmware-bin
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:firmware-bin skennedy6$ hackrf_spiflash -w
hackrf_one_usb_rom_to_ram.bin
  File size 20452 bytes.
  Erasing SPI flash.
  Writing 20452 bytes at 0x000000.
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:firmware-bin skennedy6$ hackrf_info
  Found HackRF board 0:
  USB descriptor string: 0000000000000000457863c82f773c1f
  Board ID Number: 2 (HackRF One)
  Firmware Version: 2015.07.2
  Part ID Number: 0xa000cb3c 0x00514f48
  Serial Number: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x457863c8 0x2f773c1f
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:firmware-bin skennedy6$
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:firmware-bin skennedy6$ cd ..
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:hackrf-2015.07.2 skennedy6$ hackrf_cpldjtag -x
firmware/cpld/sgpio_if/default.xsvf
  File size 37629 bytes.
  LED1/2/3 blinking means CPLD program success.
  LED3/RED steady means error.
  Wait message 'Write finished' or in case of LED3/RED steady, Power
OFF/Disconnect the HackRF.
  Write finished.
  Please Power OFF/Disconnect the HackRF.
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:hackrf-2015.07.2 skennedy6$ hackrf_info
  Found HackRF board 0:
  USB descriptor string: 0000000000000000457863c82f773c1f
  Board ID Number: 2 (HackRF One)
  Firmware Version: 2015.07.2
  Part ID Number: 0xa000cb3c 0x00514f48
  Serial Number: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x457863c8 0x2f773c1f
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:~ skennedy6$

And when I tried using the GRC source file (which worked previously) from
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rrobotics/hackrf-tests/master/fm_radio/fm_radio_rx.grc
I could not pick up ANY FM broadcast signals... [which I normally can]

So, let me install the most recent build of the portapack firmware and see
if I can visualize any signals at all using the new SPEC mode (Which ROCKS
by the way!!!).

  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:~ skennedy6$ cd ~/Downloads/
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:Downloads skennedy6$ wget
https://portapack-h1-builds.s3.amazonaws.com/sharebrained/portapack-hackrf/16/16.1/firmware/portapack-h1-firmware-c4de9c4.tar.bz2
  --2015-09-02 08:58:57-- 
https://portapack-h1-builds.s3.amazonaws.com/sharebrained/portapack-hackrf/16/16.1/firmware/portapack-h1-firmware-c4de9c4.tar.bz2
  Resolving portapack-h1-builds.s3.amazonaws.com
(portapack-h1-builds.s3.amazonaws.com)... 54.231.176.17
  Connecting to portapack-h1-builds.s3.amazonaws.com
(portapack-h1-builds.s3.amazonaws.com)|54.231.176.17|:443... connected.
  HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
  Length: 96205 (94K) [application/octet-stream]
  Saving to: ‘portapack-h1-firmware-c4de9c4.tar.bz2’

  portapack-h1-firmware-c4de9
100%[===========================================>]  93.95K   496KB/s  
in 0.2s

  2015-09-02 08:58:58 (496 KB/s) - ‘portapack-h1-firmware-c4de9c4.tar.bz2’
saved [96205/96205]

  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:Downloads skennedy6$ tar -xBpvf
portapack-h1-firmware-c4de9c4.tar.bz2
  x portapack-h1-firmware.bin
  x hackrf_one_usb_ram.dfu
  x LICENSE
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:Downloads skennedy6$ hackrf_spiflash -w
portapack-h1-firmware.bin
  File size 342856 bytes.
  Erasing SPI flash.
  Writing 342856 bytes at 0x000000.
  SDGL1288ad0ce-Biko:Downloads skennedy6$

But I still don't see any signals on the display at all and I've set the
portapack in the right frequency range to hear at least 10 FM broadcast
stations between 92.5 and 102.5 here in San Diego. In fact, I tried, 95,
97, and 100 MHz and saw the same lack of anything. [small images of
portapack display attached to email]

So... Any ideas on what to try?

Scott
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