[Xymon] question on DURATION and DOWNSECS in alerts

[Kevin VerMeer]

I have a question on what I am seeing in some of the alerts being generated.
I have a xymon alert script set up for connection events.
The alert.cfg entry is:
HOST=* SERVICE=conn COLOR=red
        SCRIPT /usr/local/xymonutil/alertscripts/noconnectivity.sh DURATION>15 REPEAT=15 RECOVERED

To me that says the script should only be invoked if connectivity is down for 15 minutes, repeat every 15 if still down, and one final time when connectivity is back up.

Within the script that gets invoked, a message gets creates like this:
MSG="Xymon is reporting no connectivty to $STATION.\n  Current time: $DATE.\n  Number of seconds down: $DOWNSECS. \n  Time down: $TIMEDOWN. \n"

And one MSG that is generated is
Xymon is reporting no connectivty to sta10143.
 Current time: 04/06/14 18:00:55.
 Number of seconds down: 60. 
 Time down: 00:01:00.

I would have expected the $DOWNSECS variable to be the total time down, even including the original 15 minute DURATION.
Is that thinking correct?  Or does DOWNSECS only include the time down after the DURATION kicks in?
Or am I off base on something else?

Appreciate any thoughts on this.
Thanks.
Kevin