This page has the information on the patch antenna I have been designing for 2.4 GHz. It is definitely in the early design stages for I am still learning how to accomplish this seemingly magical feat. I have been looking for information on the theory of patch antenna design along with any equations, and I have been coming up empty handed. Don't get me wrong, I have received a lot of help via the AMSAT-BB and it is really appreciated. Short of going out and buying a couple of text books (the price of a good down converter and preamp, which I'd rather spend the money on), it appears that nobody has the information I am looking for. Or at least they're not sharing.

That is why when I actually found a design, I decided to learn as much as I could about it. I found some FREE software that will allow you to design and simulate a patch antenna and entered the 7N1JVW/JF6BCC design. I studied it while learning the software at the same time. Now granted, I am not an electromagnetic expert or an RF engineer. I'm an electrical engineer in training (only 5 classes left!!) that happens to love to learn and experiment. The software is a little cryptic at first until you learn some new (well, new to me at least) terminology. Once I got the design entered and believed I got all of the parameters right to simulate it, I gave it a whirl. Low and behold, on my screen before me was a Near E-Field animation rotating left just as it should!! This gave me incentive to try and optimize it a little. According to my simulations, the axial ratio was not very good and the resonant frequency was a little too high. That is what got me to where I am today.

Below you will find some CAD drawings and simulation plots of the patch I've been working on. Also, I finally ran some experiments to check the performance of the design and these results can be found by clicking on the Test results link in the Navigation Menu.

Enjoy! And don't hesitate to ask any questions, drop me a note and I will help in any way I can.

CAD Drawing files of the K3TZ Optimized Design:

AutoCAD 2000 Standard Drawing File (.dwg)
ASCII DXF File (.dxf, this is a standard generic input file for most any CAD program)
JPG graphics file of entire drawing (.jpg - not very good quality)
PDF file of the entire CAD drawing
JPG graphics file of patch element details


Note: The only thing that changed from the 7N1JVW design was the dimensions of the patch element. Everything else stayed the same.

To download any of the above files, you may have to "right click" and choose "Save target as..."
You have to do this for the JPG and PDF files, otherwise your browser will just display it.


Construction views of the K3TZ Optimized Design


Overall
View
Front
View
Top
View
Top View
Close Up
Side View
Close Up



Here are some plots from Ansoft Ensemble SV© program for the optimized design.

Ansoft Ensemble SV© Plots of K3TZ Optimized Design


Scattering Matrix
(Magnitude in dB)
Admittance (Y) Matrix
(Magnitude in Mhos)
Impedance (Z) Matrix
(Magnitude in Ohms)

Complex Propagation Constant
(Magnitude)
Effective Relative Permittivity
Effective Wavelength
(Meters)

Axial Ratio Magnitude
(Theta=0, Phi=0)
Gain/Axial Ratio
(Magnitude, Theta=0, Phi=0)
VSWR (Magnitude)

Real Part rE Field (V)
vs. Theta (Cartesian)
Real Part rE Field (V)
vs. Theta (Polar)