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To balun or not to balun...

We're starting out on BLE project with the nRF51822 and trying to get a prototype design together having completed a POC with the developer kit and PCA10004, and are considering using a trace antenna initially.

Looking at the 2 reference designs for the QFN package as hopefully a good place to start, I'm wondering what the advantage of using the one with the ST balun is or if it is even relevant when using a trace antenna?

Sooner or later I guess we will migrate to a chip antenna as we would like to achieve decent range performance in a domestic scenario, but I fear our current skill-set and resources are not up to designing the necessary additional circuitry atm... (the antenna tuning guide looks a bit like black magic to me)

Any advice much appreciated,

Thanks,

Greg.

P.s Are the reference designs available in Diptrace format? or in some other portable encoding? as Altium is pretty pricey for an early days startup...

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