c/avionics-technicians

That $300 antenna analyzer I bought off Craigslist was a total dud

I picked up a used antenna analyzer from a guy near Oakland for some precision tuning work, but it turned out to be giving me readings off by 5 MHz. Cost me 2 days troubleshooting a perfectly good coax run before I realized the tool itself was busted. Anyone else ever get burned buying used test gear from random folks?

Heard a line guy at KORD say most radios are just mounted wrong

He was talking about how a coworker's comms kept cutting out because the tray wasn't grounded to the airframe right. Has anyone else seen bad grounding cause weird issues that get blamed on the radio itself?

Had to choose between a 709 crimper and a $40 amazon knockoff for a 737 job last Tuesday

I was standing in the hangar at BHM with a bundle of Deutsch pins staring me down. The Snap-on one was $180 but I figured the cheap one would be fine (spoiler: it was not). After fighting 3 pins that wouldn't seat right and wasting 20 minutes, I borrowed my buddy's real 709 and finished the bundle in 5 minutes flat. Anyone else ever get burned trying to save money on crimpers?

Rented a fancy oscilloscope for a week vs buying a cheap used one

I grabbed a rental Fluke for a tricky 737 nav issue, but ended up wishing I'd just bought a beat-up Tek on eBay for $200 after the rental fees hit $180 in 5 days. Anybody else feel like renting tests is a trap for stuff you'll only touch once?

Got burned buying a used test box off eBay, lost $400 and a whole weekend

I thought I was being smart snagging a used IFR 4000 for cheap, like $400 cheap. Figured it would be perfect for some radio checks at home, maybe save some shop time. Get it in the mail, plug it in, and the display flickers for five seconds before going totally dead. Spent all Saturday tearing it apart, found a blown cap on the power board but couldn't get the part locally. Now it's a paperweight on my bench and I'm out the cash. Anyone else have bad luck with used avionics gear from online auctions?

Chat with a retired Pan Am avionics guy got me thinking about old-school troubleshooting

He said they used to trace wiring faults with just a multimeter and a schematic before all these fancy diagnostic computers existed, and that made me wonder if I rely too much on automated test equipment now. Have you ever had a moment where an old-timer's method actually solved a problem faster than your usual go-to gear?

Talk with a 20 year avionics vet changed how I look at pin repairs

Was griping about a bad pin on a D-sub connector last Tuesday and this older guy told me 'you're not fixing the pin, you're fixing the signal path.' Made me slow down and actually check the crimp tool calibration. Anyone else have a simple comment that made you rethink your whole approach?

That guy at the hangar said I could skip the bond test on a coax repair

Last week in Phoenix, a senior tech told me I didnt need to bother with the bond test after fixing a BNC connector on a comm antenna. I listened to him and skipped it. First flight out, the VHF was dropping signal every time the gear cycled. Had to pull the panel again and redo the whole thing with a proper bond check. Anyone else ever get burned by bad advice from someone who seemed like they knew better?

Pulled a corroded connector from a 727 last month in Salt Lake City

We were tracing a intermittent comm issue on an old 727 that's been sitting in the desert. I opened a panel near the wing root and found a connector filled with green crust. Took me three hours to clean it up with contact cleaner and a tiny wire brush. The radio worked perfect after that. Anyone run into corrosion this bad on older airframes?

Just cleared my first solo wire bundle on a G1000 install and man what a feeling

Worst shift of my career happened last Thursday on a King Air 200

We had a radar altimeter glitch that took me 8 hours to trace back to a single corroded pin in a cannon plug under the floorboards. Has anyone else had a simple issue turn into a whole-day job like that?

Unpopular opinion: that $600 test set I bought off eBay was a total scam

I picked up a used DMM with cable cert functions for $600 from a seller in Phoenix last month. Turns out the calibration was 4 years expired and it wouldn't hold a zero on any resistance test. Anyone else get burned buying gear from random online listings?

Old timer at the avionics bench changed my mind about connector cleaning

Guy named Frank at the shop near DFW airport spent 20 minutes showing me how he uses isopropyl alcohol and a stiff brush on cannon plugs instead of that spray crap, said he hasn't had a single intermittent fault in 15 years. Has anyone else sworn off contact cleaner after trying this method?

Hot take: That 'perfect' shift everyone talks about was my worst week ever

I mean, last month everyone kept saying how smooth things were going on the 737s, but I spent 8 hours straight on a single wiring fault in the flap system at LAX. Turned out to be a bad connector pin, but nobody believed me till I showed them the schematic. Has anyone else had a week where the 'easy' jobs actually took longer than the hard ones?

Best shift I've had in months - everything just clicked

Last Thursday I was wiring up a Garmin G1000 in a Cessna 172 and the harness layout matched the manual perfectly for once, saved me maybe 2 hours of tracing. You ever have a day where all the little gremlins just stay quiet?

Crimped a DB9 connector wrong 3 times before I learned the trick

I keep seeing folks at SATO (San Antonio) smashing pins on those old 9-pin serial connectors like they're trying to win a fight. The issue is they're not using the proper crimper or they're stripping too much jacket off, which causes shorts. I finally watched a 5-minute video from a retired Navy tech and it clicked - you gotta stagger your pins in the hood before crimping. Has anyone else found a better way to not wreck these things on the bench?

Old senior tech at DAL taught me to trust my nose

Back when I was a new guy at the hangar in Atlanta, there was this old timer named Hank who barely talked. One day we had a MD-80 with a weird intermittent smell in the cockpit. Everyone was chasing wiring diagrams for hours. Hank walked up, sniffed the overhead panel, and pointed at a specific circuit breaker. That breaker had a tiny hairline crack heating up. Fixed it in 10 minutes. He just said 'your nose knows oxidation before your meters do.' Has anyone else had a weird smell save them time troubleshooting?

The old tech who taught me to never trust a pin tester caught me slacking 3 months later

Back in February an old timer named Jerry at our hangar in Tulsa told me to stop using my cheap pin tester on cannon plugs because it gives false readings. I brushed him off thinking he was just stuck in his ways. Then three months ago I spent half a day chasing a short on a King radio that turned out to be a bent pin my tester said was fine. Jerry was right and I should have listened. Anybody else had a tech give you advice you ignored until it bit you in the wallet?

Analog vs digital pitot testers - found my winner after a few years

I used a digital pitot static tester for about 3 years on corporate jets and kept fighting with it failing calibration checks. Switched to an older analog Schwien unit from the 90s and it's been rock solid for 18 months now with zero drift issues. The digital one cost me $2,200 used and the analog was $800 at a surplus auction near Dayton. Anyone else go back to older gear for reliability?

Took me 4 hours to find a broken ground wire on a simple Cessna 172

Last Tuesday I was troubleshooting a COM radio that would cut out during engine runup. I started checking all the usual stuff, power connections, antenna coax, even swapped the radio with a known good unit. After 4 hours of head scratching I finally noticed the ground strap on the engine mount was corroded almost through. Has anyone else spent way too long on something that should have been obvious?

Conversation with a 20-year vet changed my mind about bench testing every single board

I always thought you had to bench test every avionics board before installing it, no exceptions. Then I was talking to this old timer named Dave at a shop in Atlanta last month, and he told me they stopped doing that for certain LRUs after they realized the bench test was introducing more static damage than the install ever would. He showed me their failure rate data - it was like 2% versus 8% when they bench tested everything. Has anyone else seen that kind of flip in their own shop?

Warning: found out the hard way that old coax cables in a 737 can arc and start a fire under the floorboards

TIL the hard way that "it worked on the bench" doesn't mean it's good to fly

Last week I got a tip from an old tech named Pete who told me to always run a vibration test on any repaired LRU before reinstalling, even if it passed bench testing. I figured he was being overly cautious since I've been doing this 8 years and never bothered. So I put a comm radio back in a King Air 350 after replacing a bad capacitor, bench tested perfect, and shipped it. Three days later the pilot called me saying the audio cut out during a hard landing at a gravel strip in Fairbanks. The cold solder joint I missed only showed up under actual aircraft vibration. I had to drive 4 hours to swap it with a loaner while the plane sat on the tarmac. Pete was right all along. Has anyone else found a bench pass fail in the real environment?

Had a pilot in Cleveland show me why I should trust my gut on wiring

He pulled me aside after I second-guessed a connector reading and said 'you caught that before I even noticed the flicker'. Now I always double-check even when the schematics look clean. Any of you ever had a pilot or crew back up your instincts like that?

The before and after on an old 737 radio stack I worked up last month

I got a call to look at a radio stack from a 737 that was acting up during approach. The before picture was a mess, wiring was all tangled up and one connector was barely hanging on. After about 6 hours of tracing wires and cleaning contacts, I got it sorted. The after was night and day, the traffic collision system stopped throwing false alerts and the comms were crystal clear. The pilot told me it was the first time in months that approach didn't have to repeat themselves. Has anyone else run into a stack that looked fine but had broken ground pins hiding behind the panel?