[CW] CW Duty Cycle Question

[George, W5YR]

Now you know why so many bugs seem to have such "light" sounding dits!

The old tale from pre-WW2 days was that you could run a lot more power if
you kept the dits light enough . . .

This was especially true for the guys running close to a KW on 160 to a
large number of 6L6 metal tubes inverted in transformer oil for cooling.
Hold the key down too long and  . . .

73, George W5YR
Fairview, TX
w5yr@att.net
http://www.w5yr.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <N2EY@aol.com>
To: <fkamp@comcast.net>
Cc: <ac5p@sbcglobal.net>; <cw@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: [CW] CW Duty Cycle Question


> In a message dated 3/17/2004 9:24:42 AM Eastern Standard Time,
fkamp@comcast.net writes:
>
> > Now we see that the duty cycle is less than 50
> > percent so we can run our rigs at
> > twice the rated maximum without hurting them.
>
> Actually, hams have done that for decades. Tubes and other parts rated for
continuous service can often be pushed far beyond those limits if the duty
cycle is low enough. Since most hams spend at least 50% of QSO time
listening, and the key-down time when transmitting is less than 50%, some
liberties can be taken with the ratings. And since most hams are on the air
a few hours per day at most, any sacrifice in life is usually not noticed.
>
> But with other modes and in other services it's a very different story!
>
> 73 de Jim, N2EY