A wildlife GPS collar has a cracked antenna trace. The technician bridges the gap with a short wire jumper, confirms the path now beeps continuous, and calls it fixed — but the GPS lock is worse than before the repair. What does the section teach?

Select one answer.

• Nothing is wrong with the method — the jumper restores the broken connection, so the worse lock means the GPS receiver chip itself was damaged and now needs replacement. GPS receivers are the most sensitive stage in the device, and any handling of the antenna path stresses them, the input-fragility argument receiver-repair guides cite — so a lock that degrades right after antenna work points at the front-end amplifier long before it points at a jumper that, after all, tests continuous.
• The trace was a tuned transmission line, and the jumper is a new length of the wrong impedance dropped into the path: a move that is free at DC has detuned the RF line, so a bruised antenna path is now a broken one. At RF you preserve the geometry rather than reroute it, and the continuity beep confirmed only the copper, never the match.
• Only the wire gauge — a jumper this thin cannot carry RF current, and a heavier-gauge wire across the same gap would have restored the lock; the reroute itself was sound.
• The solder — the jumper is the right fix but its joints are cold, and reflowing both ends to a shinier finish will bring the GPS lock back to full strength.