I am trying to determine which jumper to sever to disable trace antenna on this board. I am pretty sure the circle in this image is the jumper to connect to enable the u.FL connector. I am using this guide: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/si … -guide/all
Hi schoeby,
That is exactly correct. The jumper below that circuit comes pre-soldered to enable the PCB antenna on the Simultaneous RFID Reader. You want to clear that jumper either with some [solder wick or another method (a soldering iron with some flux or rosin core solder works too) and then close the jumper you have circled with solder. After that, the antenna trace gets routed to the u.Fl connector.](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9327)
Thank you!
It is not clear to me which jumper needs to be cleared. Is it the pad just south of the highlighted circle (between the e and l of ‘ANT Select’?). Or way further down where the trace on the board narrows
This photo gives a good look at how the jumpers come pre-configured on the Simultaneous RFID Reader:
https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_t … lights.jpg
You can see the closed PCB antenna jumper next to the ANT Select silkscreen text and the unclosed external antenna jumper perpendicular to it. If you’ve never worked with solder jumpers before [this tutorial goes over working with them but just be aware that the jumpers on the RFID Reader are not 100% similar to the jumpers we cover in that tutorial. There is no need to sever any traces since the “trace” is being created by the solder. Once you remove the solder on the PCB antenna jumper, it will be open.](How to Work with Jumper Pads and PCB Traces - SparkFun Learn)