[RTTY] My FT-950's RTTY power level admonition

[Michael Rapp]

Hi all,

I had a blast during this past weekend's contest.

I'd like yall's opinion on a power level warning in my Yaesu FT-950
manual.  Under FSK RTTY operation, it warns:  "If you anticipate making
data transmissions longer than a few minutes, we recommend that you reduce
the transmitter power to 1/3 to 1/2 of normal maximum."

Valuing my rig, historically I've run RTTY contests at 50 watts.  Still,
the urge to go to 100 watts is strong, especially if a station isn't
decoding me well.  (Academically, I understand that doubling my power is 3
dB or only roughly half an S-unit, but my inexperience is clamoring to the
"any little bit helps" notion.)

To me the admonition is slightly unclear.  Are they referring to many
minutes of key-down transmission, such as in a RTTY ragchew or do they also
mean brief but repeated key-downs over many minutes, such as in contesting?

Obviously, I'm mostly S&P, but every contest I am trying to run more and
more (it's fun!) with six seconds between CQs macros if no one is calling
me.

How would you characterize the risk to my rig if I ran 100 watts during a
contest?

(Let's assume I've done all I can to get my antennas as high as possible,
of course, as a first priority.)

73,

-- 
/*/-=[Michael / KT5MR]-=/*/