Hi Sean, you can very easily take in account thie effect of this extra layer of dielectrics on the performances of your patch antenna by using an EM simulator. I work with ADF EMS a simulator produced by my company IDS (www.ids-spa.it) but we do not have a student version at the moment. You amy find very useful student version from many Vendor I am sure Ansot and Sonnet have student version free to download Hope this helps Giancarlo Sean McDevitt ha scritto: > My question is in reference to previous posts that asked about the > effects of solder mask (or silkscreen) on the impedance of lines for > high frequency ( >2 GHz) lines. The general consensus I took was that > solder mask could greatly effect the expected impedance of the traces > as another dielectric is introduced. > > In my application we have etched antennas on a 60mil FR4 board.=20 > Normally, I have made antennas in house using a simple acid etch bath > (crude but effective). However, when we order boards from a PCB > house, any exposed traces are normally covered in a layer of solder > (including our antennas, but there is no soldermask on the antennas). > > Now given that solder is not copper and thus it will have different > electrical properties, how will this effect the expected performance > of the board, and will it be a noticeable effect? > > Regards, > Sean McDevitt > Student > University of Colorado - Boulder > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > To unsubscribe from si-list: > si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field > > or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: > //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list > > For help: > si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field > > List FAQ wiki page is located at: > http://si-list.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Si-List_FAQ > > List technical documents are available at: > http://www.si-list.org > > List archives are viewable at: > //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list > or at our remote archives: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages > Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: > http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List FAQ wiki page is located at: http://si-list.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Si-List_FAQ List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.org List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu