The following image shows the location of the LNA and PA (U25 and U13) in the PCB.

You can buy a replacement in Farnell, Digikey, Mouser, etc for less that 3€. You will need to substitute the blown amplifier. I probably killed my HackRF when inserting and removing the external power amplifier I was testing. In order to stop HackRF to transmit, you need to press the reset button. In my case, I did not know that the HackRF continues transmitting even if you stop the application. Transmitting without antenna or an incorrect antenna produces a high reflected power that can destroy the PA. The PA can be destroyed because a antenna impedance mismatch. I read in Internet about people that connected their 5Watts (37dBm) directly to the HackRF input, without any attenuator. The HackRF is designed for a maximum RX signal of -5dBm. The main reason why people kill the LNA is because they put too much power in the input. HackRF One is a wide band software defined radio (SDR) half-duplex transceiver created and manufactured by Great Scott Gadgets. When the RF is set to 14, the signal is amplified by almost 14dB.īroken HackRF. If switching the RF to 14 attenuates the signals instead of increasing, the LNA (U25 in the schematics) is broken and you have to change it. You should have approximately a 14db gain. Measure signals you receive, set the RF gain to 14 and measure them again. This product can be used with HACKRF for power output for high. Configure the IF and BB gain to something in the middle of the scale (around 16 and 26dB respectively) and set the RF gain to 0. Multi-band power amplifier, operating frequency 1.4GHZ-2.1GHZ, maximum output power 34db. You just have to launch the osmocom_fft program (you can find it in the gr-osmosdr package of Pybombs) and sintonize a frequency where you can see transmissions (eg: the FM band). Is very easy to find if the LNA – the amplifier for the RX signal – is broken. When working the with HackRF in GNU Radio, the RF parameter enables the amplifiers (RF=14) or disables/bypass them (RF=0) Two RF switches Skyworks Sky13317 – U12 and U14 in the schematic – connect the antenna to the LNA, the PA or they just bypass the amplifiers.

Hackrf one amplifier