Hey Ken, welcome to the forum.  I am close to Ontario, in Michigan, right across the Blue Water Bridge.  I have visited Ontario many times and used to camp up by Port Elgin.  There is alot of good folks here and hopefully you can get help if and when you need it.....

Electrical is not my forte, but with a good service manual, my peak voltage meter, and some probes I can usually pick my way through this stuff. While I kind of grasp what you are saying here, forgive me if I seem skeptical. The reason for that is while the green/red wire in the harness for the gear position switch loses ground when I turn the key on, BOTH of the green ground wires at the ECU do NOT. I back probed those, and used the same ground as when I tested the neutral position wire. This is one of the items Honda lists in the trouble shooting for no peak voltage at the coil.

Looks like he's dropping ground to the coil.   Pretty much replaced everything electrical on the machine except the wiring harness. 

This is a carb'd, air-cooled 2011 500.   Not mine.  I've been trying to help him troubleshoot it.

Nope!  This one isn't mine, just trying to help him diagnose a 2011 TRX500FPM (footshift with power steering)