Is it possible to experiment with chip antennas on a breadboard? Any circuits available to let me do that?
I am looking at this chip antenna, but any other is ok.
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\$\begingroup\$ One more solution to this problem is to use a "blank" copper board and do the circuit in "ugly" style. Apparently it works well with RF circuits and doesn't require much tools. \$\endgroup\$– AndrejaKoSep 21, 2012 at 6:54
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There are a lot of problems with RF on breadboards. The main one is impedance matching. For maximum power to be radiated by the antenna (that's what you want) you need good impedance matching. Due to non-negligible capacitance on breadboard this would be very, very difficult to achieve. You can read more about impedance matching here
If you do want to try it on a breadboard, you should add a pi-filter (that's what they call a matching circuit in the datasheet) which can help you with the impedance matching I talked about above. You will probably want to use tunable components in said filter. However, without a spectrum analyzer or some other fancy RF equipment it will be difficult to tell when all of your power is being radiated rather than reflected.
My recommended solution is to not use a breadboard. It's surprisingly cheap and simple to make your own PCBs. For just experimenting with a chip antenna you would not need a complicated PCB so you could definitely do it on a 1-layer board. Read more about making a pcb yourself here
answered Sep 21, 2012 at 1:46
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\$\begingroup\$ I am now ready to make my own PCB to experiment with the chip antenna. Any circuit(s) you recommend for a starter? Both transmit and receive. Will be great if it involve a micro-controller, hopefully one that can be easily soldered on a board. \$\endgroup\$– lyassaOct 26, 2012 at 22:25