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NRF8001 antenna tuning

Hello!

I've developed a board with NRF8001 module mounted on it. Antenna on the board is much longer than in reference designs, so I can change the length. I also can add shunt capacitor/inductor. The problem is that I don't have a network analyzer. So is it real to tune the antenna without using special instruments?

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  • Hello

    I just designed a board and chanced the reference design a little bit (different component layout with chip antenna). I got respectable range of 10 meter. I made the mistake to use 6mil trace instead of the suggest 8mil in the pcb reference design. So i hope my next board will be better.

    Try to keep you're design as close as possible to the reference layout and you will do fine without network analyzer if you are happy with a near perfect range (just for hobby).

    Calculate you're trace impendance here: emclab.mst.edu/.../index.html

    My Eagle files for my homemade PCB. The board is made of FR4 0.8mm thick NRF51822.rar. Maybe you can send your files if you would like some comment on your design. I also made a new design without my errors. So don't use the layout for your design.

    Nick

  • If the capacitors of the crystal are wrong, the chip will not get the timing right. So i will give that the first try. Did you use a pcb antenna that is already used somewhere or did you designed your own antenna? because its actually pretty hard to design a good pcb antenna. In the reference design you won't see the actual antenna. It is just the trace to the antenna.

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  • If the capacitors of the crystal are wrong, the chip will not get the timing right. So i will give that the first try. Did you use a pcb antenna that is already used somewhere or did you designed your own antenna? because its actually pretty hard to design a good pcb antenna. In the reference design you won't see the actual antenna. It is just the trace to the antenna.

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