UPDATE:

Last night, I went up to the airport and pulled out the radio, and
pulled the connector tray as far out/forward as I could. I performed a
close visual inspection and noticed something that I hadn't noticed
before... The radio and connector union seems to be made through two
24 pin connectors and two BNC connectors. The BNC connectors are an
opposing male and female (one each on the tray, and one each opposing
on the radio). What I noticed (forgive any improper terminology) is,
that the male connector on the tray seemed to be missing one tooth (for
lack of a better word) on the outer ring of the connector and the
radio, seemed to be lacking two teeth, on the outer ring of it's male
BNC connector (that's almost half!)

Aside from not being a good thing, is this a likely suspect for some of
the symptoms I have been experiencing? Replacing those two male BNC
connectors would seem like good common sense, but is this just an
unfortunate coincidence of something else being found while
troubleshooting another problem?

Look... I'm admittedly a couple of bricks short of a fireplace, when
it comes to talking circuitry and componentry, so no piling on! ;-)
I've been paying attention to all of the posts, but alot of it seems to
be going over my head. It's not like I'm not listening... I promise,
I'm not going to go pulling any wire!

I may, however, take you up, Jim, on a trip to Grass Valley to borrow
your constant signal device or bird watt meter you mentioned in a
previous post. One step at a time, though, I guess...

Thanks,
Todd