I finally stopped fighting with the old Collins radios in our hangar.

For six months, I'd just swap the whole unit when a channel went quiet. A new guy, fresh from school, watched me pull a third one. He said, 'My instructor in Tulsa swore by checking the crystal oscillator first, before anything else.' I opened the next one, found a cracked crystal in about ten minutes. Been doing it backwards this whole time. Anyone else have a 'check the simple thing' story with legacy gear?

3 comments

3 Comments

barbarah191mo ago

Swapping units is the faster fix, honestly.

young.nora1mo ago

Wait, you were just swapping entire units for six months? That's crazy! I can't believe no one showed you the crystal trick before. Those old Collins radios are built like tanks, but that one little part fails all the time. You must have gone through a whole shelf of spares.

phoenixb341mo ago

My buddy spent a week trying to fix a flickering CRT monitor before he realized the power strip switch was just half-off.