My new Canner - and I have a few Questions

I finally bit the bullet and ordered my All American 921 Canner and it arrived yesterday!! I've been wanting one for quite a while, and finally saved up enough Discovercard points to get it almost free. After reading the manual, and trying to digest everything, I decided to put it to a test. I put about 4" of water in it, and set it to boiling. I used only the 5 pound weight just so I could see how the jiggle goes. After the weight started jiggling, I reduced the heat to see if I could get to the "4 jiggles to a minute" level.

Here's my question. I though a jiggle would be one jiggle, but mine jiggled for about 5 seconds, and I was getting only 2 per minute. So I upped the heat, but the jiggles got longer - about 10 seconds, but it was doing this about 4 times a minute. Is this correct, that a jiggle is not just once, but a series of quick bursts?

I tried it yesterday on my kitchen stove, but plan on getting a propane burner to use on the patio. This is to keep the heat and humidity out of the house during the summer months. In New Orleans, the last thing we need is more heat & humidity! I know a few of you use these propane burners. Any tricks to their use?

Thanks so very, very much for any help.

Jo-Ann

PS: Isn't jiggle a funny word when you have to use it a couple of times in the same sentence!!