Hi James,
I
have successfully repaired one of these for a mate a few months back, and the unit has been in regular use ever since - after re-siting it to a safer location!
In his case the unit (a PAW Classic) had been mounted inside the right-hand knee-hole on a flexwing trike with the antenna end facing towards the pilot and the antenna hanging down. From the damage, it had obviously received a hearty kick from someone’s foot as they got into the aircraft. I had commented previously that this position left the unit susceptible to damage, but being a syndicate aircraft, no-one had taken the initiative to re-site it - and of course none of syndicate members had any knowledge of the unit ever having been kicked.
In any event, as in your case, this had snapped the antenna off the SMA and ripped the SMA connector off the Bridge - though in his case, two of the ‘Ground pins’ were still attached to the SMA as well as the centre ‘signal’ pin, which - though it meant (as per Ash’s post) that their tracks had been ripped off the board - this at least gave me a physically fairly substantial SMA to re-attach to the board, though I did have to glue then solder the SMA back in place then repair the damaged tracks by bridging the pins back onto solid parts of the track further back on the board. After testing, I then reinforced the fitting by applying a fairly substantial blob of araldite on both sides of the board. As I say, this has been working fine ever since.
In your case however, due to the extent of the damage, the only realistic repair option would be to replace the SMA with a new one, as if you simply try to reattach the broken section it won’t have the required physical strength and will very soon break off again. This may still require some track reinstatement, so almost certainly isn’t a commercially viable repair, so if you are anywhere near Cambridge, or happy to cover the postal costs, I would certainly suggest availing yourself of Jeremy’s extremely kind offer if he is happy to give it a go. He is far more experienced in this area than I am.
Or of course, take up Ash’s offer of a new one.
Best Regards
Peter
