That was a good breakdown, those are fun to do & read.
I look at it this way; I've been hamming 35 years and I ran QSK for
the last 33 years. I've never worn out a relay in an exciter. I had
the Corsair II since it was new & made the backup rig in 09.
In amps... The original SB220 had two that needed replaced. I put QSK
in it and that was good for several years using a RJ1A. I bought an
old Alpha several years ago and I had the amp less than a month &
needed to replace the HC-1A in it, no knowing the history of the
relay I can't speak for why it failed. I opted to replace it with one
of the RJ1A silicone encapsulated ones which was extracted from a
defibrillator unit I believe. It has had no trouble. I have a spare
in case it fails again but I'm not holding my breath. :)
Also, I have a remote QSK unit containing two RJ-1A's within which is
inserted in the line and offers bias control. I used that with an
Ameritron AL-1500 for several years to give me QSK, I've never had
any trouble with it and I bought it used.
73,
Gary
KA1J
> I operate QSK and have the past thirty years using TenTec equipment.
>
> One reason given by others for not running QSK is that the relays wear out
> sooner in the transceiver and amplifier.
>
> from http://www.ad5x.com/images/Presentations/QSKals500als600RevA.pdf
>
> How Long will the Relays Last?
> What kind of life can you expect from the relays? The relay life is specified
> at 100
> million operations minimum at 36,000 operations/hour. The service life
> increases as the
> operations/hour decreases. So let´s use the standard PARIS text that is used
> for
> determining code speed.
>
> PARIS has 10 dits and 4 dahs = 14 relay operations/minute at 1 WPM.
>
> Assuming an average of 25WPM code speed, you would have 360 relay operations
> per
> minute. So, 100 million operations = 4630 hours. Now you normally operate 50%
> transmitting and 50% receiving during a QSO, so your relay operating time
> should
> double to 9260 hours. There are 8760 hours/year, which means you could
> operate 1.057
> years at 25 WPM before the relays exceeded their lifetime spec - IF you
> operate 24
> hours/day! But when you operate, you are probably listening more like 75% of
> the time
> and in a QSO 25% of the time. So this says that your relay operating life
> will be over 4-
> years if you operate 24 hours/day. So what do you normally average in
> operating
> time/day? I bet it is not more than about an hour/day. But let´s say you
> average 4-
> hours/day of operation (i.e. you are not married and have no kids, you don´t
> shop or eat
> or sleep much, and you don´t hold a full-time job). So the relay life will
> extend to about
> 25 years! The bottom line - Don´t worry about wearing out the relays anytime
> soon.
>
> 73 ES DX,
> Gary - AB9M -...-.-
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