HackRF Android Support?

[ax0n]

When I saw the announcement about SDR Angel on Android, it mentioned HackRF as supported. I finally got around to hooking up my HackRF to my Samsung Note 20 Ultra after months using SDRAngel with various RTL-SDR hardware. It seems to not be able to detect it using the default "Android SDR Driver" option. On Android, the "RTL-SDR Driver" does support HackRF natively. Certain Android apps like SDR Touch just use the HackRF with no configuration change needed while others like SDR++ and RF Analyzer require you to explicitly select HackRF. Most of the ADS-B apps for Android do not recognize the HackRF nor have a way to select it, so this is a fairly common problem, yet one that's been solved in other projects.

Build 7.15.2.1 (the latest through Google Play, updated Aug 5, 2023) has no option for HackRF in either of the drop-down lists under Add an Rx Device or Add a Tx Device dialogs - HackRF does show up as an option on Windows and Linux, though. I also tried using the Android RTL-SDR debug options to spin up a local RTL-TCP server but I can't seem to get SDRAngel to connect that way, either, though I really don't know how reliable that debug setup is, I've never used it before.

I'm more than happy to help in any way I can.
Ideas?

[srcejon]

There is no native support for HackRF.

You should use "Android SDR Driver" SDRangel plugin, which would connect to the "SDR driver" app, which claims to support HackRF. I don't have one, so can't test it.

Does "SDR driver" app detect your HackRF?

[ax0n]

Android SDR Driver does see the HackRF, but apps like RF Analyzer still require me to explicitly select HackRF from the settings. I will try to figure out what that app is doing differently behind the scenes, or how the SDR Driver behaves with RTL-SDR peripherals vs HackRF. It might be something simple.

[srcejon]

Can you attach a screenshot showing SDR Driver with advanced / debug mode showing.