More or less of Near field?

[microfielder12]

Will a patch with very high er (80) bring the near field/far field boundary closer to the antenna by concentrating the radiated field more closely to itself?
Thank you

 

[AndyECE]

Perhaps indirectly?

Changing er affects your patch size, which will affect the far field, because if the increased dimension of your aperture.

I don't think your thought process for the radiated field is correct. Once it is radiated, it is propagating in air, and so the only thing that will really affect the far field boundary is how big the antenna is (and of course the wavelength).