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Let's say I want to put a chip antenna 70 mm away from a 2.4 GHz radio. The radio has a male U.FL connector.

Is there any part that is a chip antenna that presents a male U.FL connector, so I can run a 50 ohm, 70 mm U.FL female-to-female coax cable to it?

Or should I buy a cable that is U.FL female to raw wires, and then have the PCBA house solder those wires to the antenna?

Will 70 mm of separation between the radio and the antenna, at 2.4 GHz and 50 ohm, destroy my signal?

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I can PROBABLY understand what you are asking BUT I am rushing to get other things done so will not try to answer as the question stands as the time may be wated. Others will just vote to close the question. I suggest that you consult with a friend and try to improve the English slightly to the stage where the question is more certain.| You COULD couple from the chip antenna to a coax with an RF pickup. You could remove the chip antenna and add a connector where it used to connect. – Russell McMahon Sep 22 '12 at 10:15
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@RussellMcMahon "suggest that you consult with a friend and try to improve the English slightly" Huh? – SimpleCoder Sep 22 '12 at 17:34
@SimpleCoder - No intention to be rude. If you are sure that you understand what is wanted you may wish to rework the question. I am usually reasonably good at understanding such and probably do here but I'm not certain. E.A is apparently in Stanford but either he was careless with his language or English is not his primary language. Trying to rehash something in an unfamiliar language is hard - discussing it with someone else can produce better results. --> ... – Russell McMahon Sep 22 '12 at 18:36
@SimpleCoder ... Consider eg "Is there any part that is a chip antenna that presents a male U.FL connector, so I can run a 50 ohm, 70 mm U.FL female-to-female coax cable to it?" - what does that mean. It is not good English per se. It does not present a clear technical requirement. I probably understand it BUT I have spent many hours answering questions where I find the question does not mean quite what it appears to. My success rate is good but not perfect. Having the question come some of the way to meet me always helps. – Russell McMahon Sep 22 '12 at 18:38
@RussellMcMahon: I wasn't suggesting that you were rude (I apologize if it came across that way); I, personally, just couldn't find any instances of bad English. Now that you mention it, though, I do see a few instances of awkward wording. – SimpleCoder Sep 22 '12 at 19:26
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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

You can certainly find lots of suppliers with 2.4GHz resonator antenna with U.FL-male connectors on coax.

You can get what you want if you know how to specify what you need for size and mounting of antenna, mean/peak insertion losses, reflection coefficient, mean/peak gain and attenuation properties of null points in directionality. Better designs use dual direction patch antenna with a diversity switch. If you have the resources to attention to detail to make your own cheaper, otherwise you buy according to your difficulty in meeting your specs and purchase volume.

For ease of integration, pre-tested performance, you may prefer the integrated custom solution rather than design your external patch antenna at an additional cost. Raw parts for coax, connector, resonator and board can be < $1 in volume but someone will need to have enough RF design experience on details to make this consistently reliable for performance.

You can give specs and get quotes and samples to get the process started with adequate future demand. e.g. FAC35010-UF-7 Acara with 70mm cable and U.FL >> sales@ead-ltd.com

General Specifications Radiating element 1/2 Wave Element Frequency range 2.4 and 5.2 GHz Peak gain 2.2 dBi Polarisation Linear Return loss -15 dB @ 2.4 GHz / -7.0 dB at 5.25 GHz Power rating 10W Cable / Connector Various including MMCX, U.FL, SMA Dimensions 66 x 16mm

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up vote 1 down vote

There is a company called TaoGlas ( http://www.taoglas.com/ ) that makes great antennas with a u.fl connector.

Using a chip antenna directly tied to a cable maybe tricky because most of them are designed to be placed on a specific board with defined GND layers and stackups around them. If you just float them and connect them to a wire this will detune the resonance frequancy and not give you optimal preformance.

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