Blue Lights and Dry Solder Joints

[nzradar]

Is there a connection between these two?

I read a post recently that some SBS-1er's may be prone to dry solder joints on the antenna connector thus impairing performance.  I've never been overly impressed with the range I get, it peters out around 140nm with an occasional hit at 180nm if conditions are good.

Hand in hand with this is the issue of the blue LED's.  My system shows the blue LED's in a very random manner.  With one ADS-B aircraft and one or two Mode-S aircraft in the tabular display and showing on the radar the number of LED's can be either none, one, two or three.  The increase certainly doesn't seem to be related to the number of aircraft being decoded.

Given what I've read about new antennas and new cabling where users report an increase in the LED numbers because they have improved there system I'm wondering whether the antenna connection is solid.

It would be good to hear from anyone with similar issues.

[Anmer]

Welcome Mike.

I've never had a problem with the supplied magmount but for the day job I'm using an external one.  But when doing tests the magmounts have been fine.

I have 4 blues nearly all the time (even using the magmount) and I suspect those LED "values" were established back in 2005 when there weren't so many contacts around.

I guess the answer is "No" but is there any chance you can try someone else's antenna?