Join Boston Virtual ARTCC for an evening in the heart of Connecticut and western Mass.  Bradley Bash is centered around the Y90 TRACON, which includes airports such as Worcester (KORH), ...

That's pronounced 'wah - stah'

many approach controllers on the network feel like they have to lock themselves into always issuing a full PTAC...

Thank you for bringing this up as when I was trained for approach I was only taught to use the full PTAC because online pilots never fly through the localizer, practice the mantra of Aviate, Navigate and Communicate and always maintain visual separation on final.

I have changed my final approach technique where I am now giving the instruction "Join the localizer" and then in a separate transmission issuing the approach clearance.  I find the pilots able to process information better when instructions come in smaller chunks.

The other issue I have noticed recently when giving a long instruction is that pilots will break in when you make a pause in your speech and have not given the full instruction.  A growing pet peeve of mine, 'wait until I release my PTT before you start talking.'

 

Not an ideal solution but if all you want to do is send a PTT every 'x' amount of seconds AutoHotKey https://autohotkey.com/ works.  I use this script to keep my screen saver from running.  It presses the right shift key every 1 minute, 60000 milliseconds.  You could easily modify to what ever keystroke you wanted.

CoordMode, Mouse, Screen

Loop
{
     Send {RShift}
     Sleep 60000
}


I am also unable to access the recording.

Resurrexit alleluia, you can fly again.