The difference replacing a 20 year old coax cable made on my nav display

I swapped out the original RG-58 cable on a Cessna 172 last weekend because the GPS signal was dropping every 10 minutes. The before-and-after was night and day, with the new RG-400 giving me solid satellite locks even under heavy cloud cover. Has anyone else seen that big of a jump just from changing coax on an older panel?

3 comments

3 Comments

keith_rivera1924d ago

Honestly, did you try messing with the antenna mount at all before you swapped the cable? Ngl, I had a similar thing on a PA-28 where swapping the old RG-58 for RG-400 fixed my intermittent signal loss too. The difference was unreal, like going from a flip phone to a smartphone in terms of how fast it locked onto satellites. I think the old coax just gets brittle and picks up interference over time, especially in older planes. Tbh, it's one of those cheap fixes that makes you wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

wendyk5624d ago

Swap that old coax out first next time, it's usually the culprit.

mark_mitchell24d ago

Man, you are not kidding about the flip phone comparison. I swapped out coax on an old panel once and felt like I was flying a spaceship compared to before. Honestly, I spent two hours cussing at the antenna mount and checking grounds, only to find the cable itself was the problem. Ngl, I felt pretty dumb when a $30 fix beat all my fancy troubleshooting.