This turned out to be the first of three rather intense airplane maintenance days. Bloke and I both have Garmin GNS 430 GPS/NAV/COMM radios. These radios are slicker than heck. Only problem is that Bloke's 430 does not receive voice communications worth a hoot. This is a problem when the unit involved is worth thousands of dollars. No matter which antenna he selected the 430 would not receive but his hand held received very nicely. We spent the whole day monkeying around with it. All sorts of different antennas, locations, etc. The interesting thing is that his radio in my airplane worked perfectly. As the sun sank slowly in the west, we decided to sit in front of the hangar and drink beer while discussing what to do. It was decided, after an effective amount of beer, that we would fly tomorrow to Sugarland and ask the Pros from Dover to have a look at the situation. Surely this radio shop could find the problem.