That old tech who told me to stop being a hero with my multimeter

Back when I was new at a regional outfit in Boise, I had this crusty old guy named Jerry who'd been doing avionics since the 70s. I was trying to trace a weird voltage drop on a King KX 155 nav radio, jumping leads and checking continuity all over the panel. Jerry walked by, watched me for maybe 30 seconds, and said 'put the meter down and look at the connector pins first, kid'. I thought he was full of it, but I checked the D-sub connector on the tray and found a bent pin that was making intermittent contact. Took me 3 minutes to fix what I'd been chasing for nearly an hour. After that I started checking all the physical connections before I even touch a meter. Has anyone else had to learn the hard way that the simplest connection issues can hide behind a perfectly fine wire reading?

2 comments

2 Comments

charliehill6d ago

Tbh Jerry was probably trying to save your meter from being thrown across the hangar, mine almost became a frisbee.

the_sean6d ago

Did I miss the memo that meters double as ninja stars or something? Honestly, I feel like mine has a personal vendetta against me, always trying to fly off the second I look away. At least yours got a heroic rescue, mine just took a dive off the ladder and I had to explain the dent to my foreman.