From Dave G3YMC

G4JNT wrote:

The static crashes are only " 20dB over 9" for the few microseconds
while they are happening.

While the electrical discharge in the atmosphere may be this short (but in
reality I suspect will be longer) I suspect unless the receiver has a
special IF filter the length of the pulse at the audio output will be just a
little longer....  whatever the characteristics of the AGC, on or off
In the case of severe static as of the past few days, successive crashes
tend to join together.  I have listened to normal CW with the AGC both on
and off and there is little difference in the overall copyability except
that the static is rather harder on the ears with it off. Computers of
course don't have ears!

Mike Dennison wrote:

I will try to demonstrate the advantage of QRSS in static by
providing a WAV recording and Spectrogram plot on my web site

Not much use for me as I have no sound card in my computer.

As Mike comments, it is very much up to the individual operator's
preferences which modes he uses.  I do not wish to get into arguments either
way, but I guess you know my preferences!

Cheers Dave
[email protected]
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/sergeantd