Why is the tape necessary?

[espruino-discuss3]

Posted at 2017-02-13 by BootySnorkeler

Hi,
I just soldered my HC-05 module to my espruino board, and I forgot to mask the circular aerial on the bottom of the bluetooth module, and I don't have a solder wick or pump at hand.
but why is the tape necessary?
The reference page tells me to use some tape to cover the circular aerial:

Add a small piece of Magic Tape to the back of the module, over the circular aerial connection.

Why is this necessary?
does it have a big impact on the connection if I don't?

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2017-02-14 by @gfwilliams

It should be fine - it's just that there are the 0.1" pins at the back edge of the board that could potentially touch it.

I'm pretty sure that's the aerial, so all it'd do is stop the radio transmission. If you power up the board and it appears as a bluetooth device then everything's fine and there's no need to do anything.

Even if there was a problem you should be able to (very gently) pull up the aerial end of the board and run a soldering iron along the soldered pins - as long as you can get it lifted a fraction of a millimeter so it's not touching you'll be fine