Hello. Most of you know, that I am an antenna engineer. i'm working on some pcb antennas, the permitivity of the board effects the antenna's effective length and impedance bandwidth. the soldermask also detunes the device, since the soldermask layer covers the copper trace an confines the electric and magnetic fields closer to the board , thus allowing current to propagate inside of the dielectric.

simulating a pcb antenna is a son of a bi+tch! well not really, but i really like to model my devices as accurately as possible, that way i have little manual tuning at fab time and none at production time.

does anyone recommend any textbooks that list electrical not mechnical, material properties of dielectrics in detail at several frequencies? alot of data sheets and pcb vendors give broad specs at a few frequencies. alot of times, i have extrapolate or even measure the the permitivity of the dielectric to fine tune my model.

any help will be appreciated.

@quixotron: As I mentioned in a PM, I didn't respond because it's evident to me that you know much more about the subject than I do. If that's a cold shoulder, that's your problem not mine. I do possess a broad knowledge, but I've never read books on the subject of PCB antennas. I've read the ARRL Antenna Book several times in hopes that I absorb something, but I don't recall a treatment of PCB antennas.

If you understand Maxwell's Equations, you are waaay ahead of 99.9999% of the population. Including me.