miso@sushi.com hath wroth:

>I'm trying to visualize how the pcb material interacts with the copper
>track. It's not like you are doing stripline, i.e. metal traces with
>the fr4 between the traces. The signal hits the copper from free air.
>But a reflector would have the dielectric of the pcb in the path.

I just had a thought[1]. Many years ago, I designed (actually I threw
together) an antenna using a PCB substrate. I didn't have the fancy
modeling software available, so I did it by cut-n-try, with a pile of
test equipment. I started with just 0.032 G10 PCB material and use
copper tape (from the local stained glass supplier) to create the
antenna elements. Exacto knife adjustments were quite easy. You
could probably prototype something similar. I also made some using
window glass as a substrate. That worked fairly well but was limited
to designs were the coax was fed at the edge of the glass plate as it
couldn't be easily drilled.

[1] It happens, but not very often.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558