Timing out on large file

[spaceman]

I'm using "rsync -azurvp -e ssh $acctname@$ip:$first --timeout=60 ."  
in which I use the timeout to cutout if ssh won't connect, but if I do 
connect and begin downloading a large file there doesn't seem to be any 
writing to disk for more than 60 seconds and so it will time out & die.

Is there a better suggested way to initiate an automated ssh 
connection, testing for timeouts & downloading large files?

Steve Malllett