HackRF Portapack H2: Affordable Antenna - Works Great!

Picked Up This Affordable Portable 30 Inch (Max) Telescopic Antenna 'Upgrade' For HackRF Portapack H2. FM Reception, Comparing To Stock Telescopic Antenna, And Sharing Details To Prevent Breaking (Did That). Always Hunting For Good Antenna Deals.
SOURCING: Find This Antenna On Amazon or Check Aliexpress (compare to video for accuracy)
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[@somebody-ek9df]

If you want to get rid of the play on the original telescopic antenna, you could try to narrow down the hole with a bit of solder on the inside. This is just enough to almost completely remove the play on the hinge part. And if you apply the solder gently it doesn't hurt the screw at all.

[@RTPTechTips]

This is an excellent idea I hadn't thought of! 😃
Going to try this.
Thank you.

[@tuurblaffe]

doesnt the length of ur antenna need to match a wavelength or 1/2 or 1/4 wavelength?

[@cherrymountains72]

yes, though it plays more of a role with sending signals as opposed to receiving signals.

[@davidlee50]

I heard that the SMA @ 8:56 has a 500 use duty cycle, so I'm adding from amazon the:
Antenna Adapter SMA Male to BNC Female RF Coaxial Connector Adaptor for Ham Handheld Two Way Radio Antenna SMA-M/BNC-F
It is a 5 pack for 16 bucks

[@RTPTechTips]

Actually have one of those on my other portapack radio (seen in couple of the videos). I'd say, it's worth it.

[@FlavorExperiment]

Do you know how to decode digital signals like TDMA? I want to monitor the power company since we just got hit by a hurricane and there are millions of power outages, my Pro-97 scanner appears to be too old, I tried airspy in windows with no luck using SDR, but maybe some GQRX or commandline wizardry can monitor them all using digital decoder binary. Know whats funny? I was able to monitor a security camera just by pivking up its signal via commandline once and it was not even CCTV it was a wifi camera... It just had signal leakage... but you have to find the video decoding algo and radio frequency and I forgot what command line thing I used but it worked and through a brick wall

[@RTPTechTips]

Haven't personally looked into that for hackrf, but might find something related searching rtl-sdr.com or radioreference, or hackaday.
Another thing I like to do is search the closed issues on hackrf github to see what others may have tried, in case those sites help at all.
All kinds of power issues going on lately from what I hear!

[@iyeetsecurity922]

If your area services use (digital) P25 phase 1 or 2 then you'll need a trunking/trunk/trunktracker radio like a Uniden 436hp, 536hp, sds100. On its own, the HackRF Portapack doesn't pick up those signals unfortunately.