Dirt runway avionics check in Arizona had me scratching my head

Flew out to a little strip near Payson last week to look at a King Air with nav issues. The pilot swore the GPS was drifting, but my handheld showed clean sats. Turned out a loose coax on the belly antenna was the whole problem, 30 minutes with a wrench and it was solid. Makes me wonder how many weird squawks are just bad connections from gravel and vibration. You guys seeing more antenna cable wear on planes that operate off pavement? Just curious if it's a pattern or I got lucky with an easy fix.

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nora_park24d ago

Last month I did a pre-buy on a Cessna 172 that had a dead transponder, and the owner had already ordered a whole new unit before I even showed up. I popped the floor panel, and the antenna cable had rubbed through where it passed by a seat rail, just a bare wire and a lot of chafing. Cost him nothing but my hour, but he still had the new transponder sitting in the box, so I installed it anyway. Gravel and vibration explains half the gremlins I see, but sometimes it’s just a bad install from a previous shop.

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