On Nov 7, 2007, at 11:20 PM, Paul Plack wrote: > Nate, > > You'd have fewer thermal cycles, but a wider range of extremes > between hot and cold, since continuous duty for four hours would get > the joint to a higher peak temp. > > Am I missing something? > > 73, Paul AE4KR >
Well, the maximum temperature is going to be relatively the same, either way -- once it's finally been on for a while. The big question is... in the "temperature change breaks the connection" theory -- is the thing rate-of-change dependent more than it is number-of-changes dependent. Since rate-of-change is affected by the ambient temperature in the room... it's harder to control. Rate-of-change is something we can fiddle with... or at least "smooth out"... it comes on, it stays keyed for a long time, and it goes off... in the longer tail setup. Ultimately since it can take two or more years to see the results of these "tests" we'll have to put different systems into different configurations and keep one system as a "control" for a really scientific test, and the other variables will screw this all up, anyway... but it's "something to try"... if we stumble into something that works... sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, eh? (In the scientific world you're allowed to bumble into surprise discoveries as long as you're documenting everything along the way, right? GRIN...) -- Nate Duehr, WY0X [EMAIL PROTECTED]
