If your modulation meter pegs before 200% it's no good.
Is that one of those ham things, like RMS power? Currently I do a point slope from the average to 0. Anything below 0 would be free energy.
I always thought RMS power was an audiophile thing!
"Zero" modulation in Mod Mon talk just means no modulation, so at 0% mod you still have your original unmodulated carrier.
Just looking at a reading of zero on the modulation meter on a Mod Mon tells you nothing about whether the transmitter is producing power or not.
Power meters like the Bird show a standing reading when the Tx is unmodulated, so are not useful for, nor are they used to display, modulation.
In
conventional AM, the modulating signal is symmetrical, so the 100% limit is when the negative excursion of the modulating signal cuts the carrier.
In practice, AM Broadcast stations are limited to around 90% modulation, to avoid this.
It you "cut carrier" on the negative excursions of modulation, your mod mon will "peg", but you don't produce any more power out.
In practice, you waste a lot in harmonics, everybody on multiples of your transmitting frequency will be upset, & the Licencing Authority will kick your butt severely!(If you are a broadcast station, an aeronautical station, or a ham---CBers are seemingly ignored).
Strangely, listening to the result on an AM receiver tuned to the original frequency, the distortion is not really apparent, but looking at it with an Oscilloscope (modulation envelope), or with a Spectrum Analyser, the problem is readily apparent.
But you know all this crap & are just playing dumb for some unknown reason!