Patent ID: 6952185

Claim:
A method for manufacturing and tuning a center frequency of a microstrip antenna comprising the steps of: (a) providing a first dielectric layer having an upper surface and a lower surface; (b) mounting a rectangular shaped copper antenna element on the upper surface of said first dielectric substrate, said antenna element generating an electric field; (c) mounting a copper ground on a remaining portion of the upper surface of said first dielectric substrate (d) forming a continuous gap around an upper edge and two sides of said antenna element between said antenna element and said copper ground; (e) mounting a plurality of aligned tuning tabs on the bottom surface of said first dielectric substrate, each of said tuning tabs being positioned on the bottom surface of said first dielectric substrate below the upper edge of said antenna element; (F) mounting a plurality of tuning tabs vias within said first dielectric substrate, each of said tuning tab vias passing through said first dielectric substrate to connect one of said plurality of tuning tabs to said antenna element; (f) positioning a second dielectric layer below said first dielectric layer in alignment with said first dielectric layer; (g) mounting a ground plane on a bottom surface of said second dielectric layer; (h) mounting a plurality of ground plane vias within said first dielectric layer and said second dielectric layer, each of the ground plane vias in said first dielectric layer being aligned with one of said ground plane vias in said second dielectric layer and connected thereto, said ground plane vias in said first dielectric layer and said second dielectric layer connecting said copper ground on said first dielectric layer to said ground plane on said second dielectric layer; and (i) tuning the operating frequency of said microstrip antenna by selectively removing said tuning tab vias from said first dielectric substrate wherein the operating frequency of said microstrip antenna is fine tuned by a predetermined incremental frequency when each of said tuning tab vias is removed from said first dielectric substrate.