That’s what I thought but if you look at the datasheet @kvk Julia is following as well as she can. Blue arrow shows copper is following keep out guidelines
Shows the keep out area and grounding pads (which I was initially worried about on the picture (in red)
@JuliaTruchsess I’m the master of wild goose chases but this is what’s on my mind.
Datasheet says dev board uses 1mm PCB thickness. And “A different host PCB thickness dielectric will have small effect on antenna.”. Is this something you have done / could do on next spin?
“Minimum safe distance for metals without seriously compromising the antenna (tuning) is 40 mm top/bottom and 30 mm
left or right.” Well obviously that’s not possible in your 60 x 60mm envelope but with the dev kit can you get the antenna into the exact position within the enclosure that yours would be and measure the range distance (perhaps on lower power setting so you don’t need to walk so far!) change as you vary its proximity to the edge? Then maybe you can see whether pulling your PCB back by even a few mm might make any improvement.
Do you have board mounting hardware in proximity to the module? It doesn’t look like it but worth thinking about.
Are you confident that the soldering under the pads connected to the vias in the red circle (and those under the module along the edge of the antenna) is good? If those pads have not been connected, perhaps the ground plane is messed up at a critical place wrt to the antenna.