Hot take: I used to think chasing every single intermittent fault was the only way to be a good tech.
For the first five years on the line, if a pilot wrote up a 'comm static, sometimes' squawk, I would pull the whole radio stack, bench test every unit, and spend hours checking every wire and connector in the path. I thought that was just what being thorough meant. Then, about three years ago on a King Air 200 in Boise, I spent two full days on a similar issue, replaced a perfectly good transceiver, and the write-up came back the next flight. My lead, a guy named Ray, pulled me aside and said, 'You're looking for a needle in a stack of needles. Start with the antenna and the coax, because 90% of the time, that's where the ghost lives.' He was right. A quick check with a meter showed a bad braid on the co-pilot's VHF antenna cable. Now, my first move is always the antenna system and the cabling run. It saves so much time and headache. Anyone else have a similar 'aha' moment about changing their diagnostic order?