[Amps] AL1200, RTTY contesting, temps, duty cycles (not 100%)

[Bill, W6WRT]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

On Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:06:03 -0700, Kevin Normoyle <knormoyle at surfnetusa.com>
wrote:

><snip>
>I'm just interested in making sure I operate within the AL-1200 performance envelope. I was surprised to see all this talk about RTTY duty cycles, as if it was well defined/understood. When it seems not to be. i.e. if if was just RTTY duty cycle, do things melt on a 1 minute RTTY ragchew? I don't know, but as I described, don't care. I'm perfectly happen to limit my RTTY macros.
<snip>

REPLY:

I've thought about duty cycles a lot over the years. I believe the highest duty
cycle in normal ham operations is a string of unanswered CQs during a RTTY
contest. In my case, a typical CQ macro will transmit for about seven or eight
seconds and listen for about 1.5 seconds, a duty cycle somewhere around 80%.
Nothing else, neither contesting nor DXing nor ragchewing comes close. A typical
ragchew is about 50% and so is a typical contest exchange. Contest S&P is even
less, as is DXing.

73, Bill W6WRT