Interesting.
I have only just found this thread.
I had bought a 405 line TV for the Queen's funeral, and watched that using a hedghog standards converter.
But since then I independently decided that longer term I would prefer to have a hack rf one based solution, which I got working in its most basic form last Sunday (local sound and video retransmission of BBC).
My experiences mirror/support everything the initial poster has said, even down to my extreme nervousness about turning on the output amplifier ( or fiddling with the aerial ) after reading very alarming threads elsewhere. I interpret those threads as providing compelling evidence that (for all its excellence in other areas) there are some glaring and simple omissions in the hack rf one's aerial ESD protection which ?bizarrely? the original creator seems reluctant to even acknowledge let alone fix. This is a shame as it means there is a small but not insignificant blight on what is otherwise a fantastic product.
Anyhow, fragile aerials aside, I am very pleased with hackrf and hacktv, and get good reception with just 41db gain and a Yale front door key or coat hanger as the reception antenna with the transmitter 1m away.
Longer term I need 80m range, though, so will have to get a better transmitting and receiving aerials, which I don't yet possess. (See a wanted post I made elsewhere on this forum earlier today:
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=195335 )