ESP8266 Community Forum

- Wed Sep 17, 2014 1:29 am #683 Thanks jonsmirl,

but I don't like inverted F / PIFA or other PCB Antennas
There are too many parameters on these type of antennas on which I don't have influence on (When using a PCB prototype service which doesn't cost a fortune). Also the antenna gain isn't that good on these antennas , I prefer a cheap RP-SMA Antenna.

For example these prototype PCB services usually specify an Er (Epsilon R) of the FR4 between 4.1 and 4.5 , that a bit unprecise to say at least and calculating and designing an Antenne on these PCBs is a bit of trail and error. Sure you can get impendance controlled PCBs or even Rogers substrate from these services as well but I don't want to get into that trouble/costs for just some boards.

The (RP)SMA connector also gives me the opertunity to connect a Spectrum Analyzer to the Chip. I'm really curios about how good the Z matching and bandfilter in the chip really is.

Also I'm a bit wondered about the PCB Antenna you linked to , there is soldermask on the Antenna itself (Soldermask has an influence on the Antenna @ 2.5GHz) and the "shorting arm" is quite near to a ground plane. But well I don't consider myself as an RF engineer so I might be wrong here

- Wed Sep 17, 2014 1:58 am #684 Maybe you can put a PCB antenna AND a connector on PCB? Users could activate the one they want by soldering that 5p6 capacitor to SMD pad for the target antenna - if you know what I mean.

- Wed Sep 17, 2014 2:08 am #685 Hmm that might be an idea! I will look into that

Edit : This "PCB" Antenna looks nice : http://www.molex.com/images/MSTD/2011Ju ... ntenna.pdf

- Wed Sep 17, 2014 2:42 am #690 I have never seen an antenna like that, that's cool.

But sourcing might be a problem, you would probably have to order a thousand of these minimum...