My question is – a completely missing ground plane is a ‘permanent’ situation degrading the transponder signal. Why would the signal improve with recycling, and then not degrade again for weeks or months?
Answer - it won’t. The controllers are just playing at being software engineers, as in the following story:
Three engineers are in a car that loses its brakes at the top of a hill. It careers down the hill, and the driver manages to pull up at the bottom. The engineers get out and look at the car. The automotive engineer says “Let’s get this baby in the shop and get those brakes fixed pronto”. The mechanical engineer says “Whoa, why not just jack it up, let’s take a look underneath and see if we can see anything loose”.
The software engineer looks at the other two with disbelief, and says “Are you guys nuts? Why bother with all that? Let’s just take it to the top of the hill and see if it happens again!”.