Antenna Pre-amp - Part 2 - Second Attempt

As I noted in my last post, I was fairly sure my pre-amp was not working correctly and I was going to try to recommended layouts from the designer (as indicated by another hobbyist who drew up the layout and posted it here). Here are the two layouts, side by side:

My layout (1st attempt)

Designer's layout (2nd attempt)

The big difference between the two designs is the amount of ground plane on the top layer. Both designs have the entire backplane acting as a ground and I mistakenly thought this would be enough. The designer's layout has most of the top layer also acting as ground. And as you might suspect, it made a world of difference. 80mA steady-state current (both with and without input and output termination) and cool to the touch with a nice, big heat-sink.



Its amazing to think that layout made that much difference but this is the world of RF where crazy things happen all the time.