I finally figured out why my Garmin GNS 530 was losing signal mid-flight

Spent 3 hours troubleshooting a GNS 530 that kept dropping GPS signal on a Cessna 172 last Tuesday. Checked the antenna, the coax, even reseated the connectors twice. Finally found a cracked ground terminal on the back of the unit after a 4th continuity test. Anyone else wasted a whole afternoon on something this simple before?

3 comments

3 Comments

gonzalez.reese15d ago

Man, that's always how it goes with electronics - even my phone charger does the same thing to me @the_zara.

the_zara15d ago

Ground issues always sneak up on you, good call on the continuity test.

drewsullivan15d ago

Man, I gotta push back on this a little. If you've got a cracked ground terminal on the back of a unit that's been through a hundred installs, that's not really "simple" - that's a design or installation flaw that should've been caught way before you wasted an afternoon on it. @gonzalez.reese is right that ground problems sneak up on you, but tracing a fault like that means the original installer or Garmin's build quality probably let you down first.