More Radio Repairs
I took the plane back to the avionics shop today to get the radio situation resolved. It had been a month since the new radio was installed. It took us a while to realize what the problem was and rule out the intercom, headsets, etc. as the cause. There were apparently loose connectors inside the radio itself, which the technicians were able to repair.
It looks like the problem is fixed; before today we were never able to transmit clearly on the new radio. I used only that one for the flight home, making calls on several frequencies to unicom, ground, tower, approach, etc., and apparently I sounded loud and clear.
I’m not sure if the problem with the other radio not receiving weak signals as well has been fixed; I’ll have to go to where the problem occurred to test that. The first VOR is still way off, but at least I now seem to have one radio which transmits and receives well and another which transmits fine and receives ok.
I’ve never had two radios before, since most of the trainers I flew have only one. I’ll probably get in the habit of using the older one mainly as a backup and for monitoring a second frequency. The GPS worked great, too. Having the runway layouts in it makes it easier to visualize where I should be to enter downwind or whatever instruction I’m given, and I can look at the ground track later to see how well I did.
I get a lot of satisfaction out of these flights in class C and B airspace with all the extra work involved. Both times I’ve gone to Sarasota by myself, I’ve shared the place with airline traffic. I probably get more out of one trip like this than from ten hours of the kind of flying I usually do, from one uncontrolled airport to another. The flight back at night from city to city is a great experience.
