Colin Karpfinger who brought us the Eagle PCB Design Ordering Tips last time is here with some more PCB help. This time Colin is helping us design a PCB Trace Antenna. One of these days you are going to make a product or project that needs to communicate without stringing a bunch of copper. To me antenna design is magic, some squiggles on a board talk to some squiggles on another board and just like magic the two systems are talking to one another. The only time I have done some wireless communication I picked up a wireless communication system that took in RS-232 and spat it out the other side. Worked like a charm and to me it was just like I was using a wire.
Next time you are thinking of making a wireless project you should think about tackling building the wireless side also.
“Engineers love to refer to wireless as ‘black magic’. Which is partly true. But with the right tools and the willingness to f*** it all up (a few times), you’ll be making your mark on the 2.4GHz band in no time. This guide is a ‘Trial and Error’ approach to antenna design. It won’t be perfect, and won’t cover a lot of the ‘hard’ topics. You probably won’t even feel smart after reading it. You may even feel a little dirty. But you WILL be able to design an antenna to ‘good enough’ standards, for 2.4GHz communication (wifi, zigbee, ANT+, etc).”
