[CW] CW Duty Cycle Question

[Ken Brown]

Hi Mike and group,

Duty cycle for CW is pretty close to 50%. Since there is an interelement 
space the length of a dit for every dit sent, that equates out to 50%. 
Since most characters have only one dah, and there is a intercharacter 
space the length of a dah after every character, that equates to 50% 
duty cycle. If you send a lot of characters that have a lot of dahs in 
them, the duty cycle will be greater than 50%. A string of zeros is the 
worst case I can think of and that would still be less than 75% duty 
cycle. This all assumes "perfect" dit, dah and space timing, with no 
added weighting. Adding "weight" would increase duty cycle.

DE N6KB