--sorry for the repost but the server is adding junk to the message that made it unclear to read -- I recently built 3 different uStrip construction testboards and was surprised by the results: it didn't work! I built two boards as trace over copper with soldermask and one board as a co-planar waveguide. I constructed the geometries of the boards by following the results of some "freebie" tools out there. After the boards were built I connected them to an HP network analyzer (I calibrated out the cables/cons) to look at S21 response. What I found was surprising. The S21 was extremely poor: approx 6.5dB loss over 4". This just does not compare to the results of the tools I have access to. I expected about 1.2 - 1.5 dB of loss at this frequency. Has anyone else out there had some bad experiences with uStrip @ 2.5GHz? What tools are you using? How are you correlating your tool's results to real-world? The construction of the three boards was as follows: Board 1: 12 mil trace, 1/2 oz foil with 1 oz plating, 8 mil to gnd (three sheets of 1080 prepreg), 1oz copper gnd Board 2: (CPW): 8 mil trace, 8 mils to gnd (again, 3 sheets of 1080 prepreg), 6 mil to gnd return on signal layer, same plating/thicknesses Board 3: 4.75 mil trace, ~2.83 mils to gnd (one sheet of 1080 prepreg), 1/2 oz foil, 1oz plating, 1oz copper gnd Regards, Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 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