Installing drivers and support for the SDRplay RSP1A and HackRF One on a Raspberry Pi

On a newly installed Debian 64 bit operating system.

There seems to be little Linux support for SDRplay devices outside of the convenient images from SDRplay with preinstalled software. That software was limited and out of date as of this writing. I have spent quite a bit of time getting an up to date system on which to install the latest Linux SDR software. I have added support for the HackRF One. This procedure uses Debian, whose packages are much more up-to-date and is cleaner than the Ubuntu. It does not have the flaky screen saver issues. However, I have found that the analog/headphone jack does not work. I hope this helps you. These procedures may work for other SDR hardware except for the drivers and device specific items.

I suggest turning off power saving features as they will halt your SDR reception. There are several places where this should be done. There are details near the end of this section.

I basically included prerequisites that were not found on my system. However, there may be a few packages listed that are already installed. This is OK.

Note: I have included support for both for the SDRplay RSP1A and the HackRF One. You will only need to install support for the device(s) that you have, in these procedures.

Install Debian:

Download the latest tested arm64 Raspberry Pi image of Debian here: https://raspi.debian.net/tested-images/
Look in the "Failed tests" column and select an image that looks OK.
I used 2021.04.13 11 (Bullseye) 4 (4GB). This procedure may not be appropriate for the next major version.
Installed the image on a 32 GB or larger SD card. Use your favorite image program. I used Balena Etcher on Windows. For more help extracting and flashing the image, look on the image help page. You may try a smaller SD card if everything will fit on that.
Connect to a wired network.
Boot the image in your Raspberry Pi.
Log in using "root", no password.
Your Internet connection should work automatically. Update the OS with these commands:
```
apt update
apt upgrade
```
Reboot
Install the LXQt desktop. Without rebooting between these commands:
```
apt-get install lxqt-core
apt-get install xinit
```
Reboot.
Log in using "root", no password.
It is recommended that you assign a secure password to the root account.

Do a few setup items before you launch the GUI.

apt install sudo

# We will now set up the user. I chose username "pi".
adduser pi
usermod -a -G sudo,plugdev pi

Reboot
Log in with your new user login.
To start the GUI, type startx.
Let's install firefox so we don't have to type all of these commands
```
sudo apt-get install firefox-esr
```
Set the time zone
- Applications menu > Preferences > LXQt Settings > Locale
Set locale to en_US.UTF-8 as is needed by wsjt-x
- Install locale
```
sudo apt install locales
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
```
- Move the cursor to [*] en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and press the space bar to select.
  Tab to <Ok> and press enter.
  Highlight en_US.UTF-8, Tab to <Ok> and press enter.

Install software:

Install some more basics

sudo apt install pyqt5-dev python3-sip python3-pyqt5.sip python3-pyqt5
sudo apt install muon
# sudo apt install network-manager
sudo apt install network-manager-gnome
sudo apt install man git usbutils

To connect with WiFi using network-manager, type nmtui at the command prompt. Select Activate a connection. Press Enter. Highlight the Network you want. Tab to <Activate> and press enter. Enter the password and press Enter. A * will appear by the network name and the highlight will turn blue if successful. It should reconnect after each bootup. Tab to <Back> and press Enter. Use the down arrow key to highlight Quit and press Enter.
cmake
- To install the version in the packager: sudo apt-get install cmake
- For the latest version of cmake, Instructions are here, but the packager version will work. This is a long procedure.

Qt5 5.15.2 should already be installed from the LXQt installation.

Install additional Qt5 packages

sudo apt install qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev qtmultimedia5-dev libqt5multimediawidgets5 libqt5multimedia5-plugins qtgstreamer-plugins-qt5 qtcreator libqt5svg5-dev libqt5serialport5-dev qttools5-dev libqwt-qt5-6 libqwt-qt5-dev
sudo apt install libqt5websockets5-dev libqt5charts5-dev qml-module-qtlocation qml-module-qtpositioning qml-module-qtquick-dialogs qtdeclarative5-dev qtpositioning5-dev qtlocation5-dev libqt5texttospeech5-dev

SDRplay API Installation

Prerequisites

sudo apt install libusb-1.0-0 libusb-1.0-0-dev libfftw3-3 libfftw3-dev

# Create a new file:
sudo featherpad /etc/udev/rules.d/66-mirics.rules

Paste this line into the 66-mirics.rules file opened in the previous step:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="1df7",ATTRS{idProduct}=="2500",MODE:="0666"

Save the file. Once this file is in place you should reset the udev system by typing:
```
sudo service udev restart
```

Download API 3.07 or later for ARM Ubuntu from https://www.sdrplay.com/downloads/. API 3.07 (for 64bit OS) RSP Control Library + Driver.

cd ~/Downloads # or wherever you downloaded the file
chmod 755 SDRplay_RSP_API-ARM64-3.07.1.run
sudo ./SDRplay_RSP_API-ARM64-3.07.1.run
sudo ldconfig

To stop and start the API service, use the following commands...
```
sudo systemctl stop sdrplay
sudo systemctl start sdrplay
```
Type lsusb. Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1df7:3000 or similar should be displayed.

HackRF One installation

Prerequisites
If you did not install these for SDRplay:

sudo apt install libusb-1.0-0-dev libfftw3-3 libfftw3-dev

Install

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf
cd hackrf/host
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j 4
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

You may need to update the firmware to match the version of the host tools. As of this writing, the latest firmware version was 2018.01.1

hackrf_info

# If you see "Firmware Version: 2018.01.1 (API:1.02)", then it is up to date.

# Transfer rate test:
hackrf_transfer -r /dev/null -s 21500000

#Test sending data:
hackrf_transfer -t /dev/zero

If the tests fail with hackrf_open() failed: Access denied (insufficient permissions) (-1000), reboot and try again.

GNU Radio 3.8.2
This will install GNU Radio from packages supplied with Debian. It saves a few hours of installation time. If you want to install a newer version from source, follow the procedures on Installing drivers and support for the SDRplay RSP1A and QRadioLink on a Raspberry Pi with Raspberry Pi OS, except use git checkout to select the latest version.

Prerequisites

Install these packages. (some may already be installed).

sudo apt install g++ libcodec2-dev libvolk2-bin libvolk2-dev libvolk2.4
sudo apt install libboost-all-dev libgmp-dev swig python3-requests python3-ruamel.yaml python3-setuptools python3-numpy python3-mako python3-sphinx python3-lxml doxygen libsdl1.2-dev libgsl-dev libzmq3-dev python3-yaml python3-click python3-click-plugins python3-zmq python3-scipy python3-docutils liborc-0.4-0 liborc-0.4-dev python3-gi-cairo python3-waitress liblog4cpp5-dev liblog4cpp5v5
sudo apt install osspd osspd-pulseaudio sudo osspd-alsa libcppunit-dev

Install UHD and GNU Radio 3.8.2

Installing UHD will automatically install GNU Radio.

sudo apt install libuhd3.15.0 libuhd-dev

# Show version
gnuradio-config-info -v

sudo featherpad ~/.profile
#add this  export command to the end of the file or to any existing PYTHONPATH line. Save changes to make the variables permanent.
export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages:/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages:/usr/lib/python3.9/dist-packages:/usr/local/lib/python3.9/dist-packages:$PYTHONPATH

Create a file named /etc/ld.so.conf.d/gnuradio.conf containing: /usr/local/lib

sudo featherpad /etc/ld.so.conf.d/gnuradio.conf
# insert the line: /usr/lib
# Save the file

sudo ldconfig

reboot

Build SoapySDR

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapySDR.git
cd SoapySDR
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j4
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

Install the Soapy SDR module for SDRPlay

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapySDRPlay.git
cd SoapySDRPlay
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j4
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

# Type these commands. If your SDR is listed, the hardest work is done!
SoapySDRUtil --info
SoapySDRUtil --probe="driver=sdrplay"

Install the Soapy SDR module for HackRF

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/pothosware/SoapyHackRF.git
cd SoapyHackRF
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j4
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

# Type this command. Check that your SDR is listed and the details are correct.
SoapySDRUtil --probe="driver=hackrf"

Alternate gr-osmosdr module for SDRplay API 3.x - supports RSPduo (all modes) and RSPdx
Please note that this code is still experimental. The installer does find SDRplay, Soapy and HackRF. OsmoSDR does appear in GNU Radio Companion, no reference to SDRplay or Soapy.
```
cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/fventuri/gr-osmosdr.git
cd gr-osmosdr/
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DENABLE_NONFREE=TRUE
```
Under Gnuradio enabled components in the terminal text, check that SDRplay RSP (NONFREE), SoapySDR and HackRF support are listed.
```
make -j4
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
```
Run GNU Radio Companion and check that OsmoSDR is in the tree on the right side of the window.
If you find that the operating system only has mono audio:
```
sudo featherpad /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/default.conf
```
- Comment out each line in the [Mapping analog-mono] section with a ";" at the beginning of the line.
- Save the file and reboot.
Disable the screen savers and power features. If you don't want the screen saver to activate, try these settings:
- Preferences > Screensaver
  Select Disable Screen Saver.
  If a popup says that XScreenSaver is not running, click cancel.
- Preferences > LXQT settings > Power Management
  Click on Idle. Uncheck Enable Idleness Watcher
- Preferences > LXQT settings > Session Settings
  Click on Basic Settings. Uncheck Power Management.
- Preferences > LXQT settings > Session Settings
  Click on Autostart. Under LXQt Autostart uncheck XScreenSaver

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