[Sussex] Bluetooth antenna, it an epic fail

[Steve Dobson]

HI All

On 15/05/10 18:43, Richie Jarvis wrote:
> On 15/05/2010 17:01, Desmond Armstrong wrote:
>> On 14/05/10 09:55, Andrew Guard wrote:
>>
>>> Have look at this and tell me if can see an issue here.
>>>
>>> http://micah.navi.cx/2010/04/failed-antenna-design-101/
>>>
>>>
>> It is truly amazing the cons that people get up to, and for what profit?
>>
>> Looks pretty, though.
>>
>>
>>
> You guys are missing the obvious antenna - the strip of copper is the
> antenna....

I seam to remember from a talking to one of the roboteers from Robot 
Wars - in fact it was the guy to built most of the robots for series 1 
and the guy that built and control Brum (so he clearly knows his stuff), 
that the length of the antenna was determined from the frequency of the 
transmitter.

Bluetooth being such a high frequency doesn't need a very long antenna 
do building it onto the PCB seams okay to me, but I am no expert in such 
things.

> Of course, quite what the manufacturer thought it needed a dummy one
> for, I've no idea - it was probably an example of marketing over
> engineering though!

Marketing thinking that a bigger antenna is a better antenna, and not 
knowing the physics as to why this thinking is all wrong, seems 
completely logical to me.  In fact, IIRC, the roboteer said that many of 
the robots in robot wars 1, 2 & 3 that had control problems was because 
the builders had shorted their antennas.

Steve