ALE 400 is a subset of wideband ALE, so wouldn't we expect even fewer participants? Even regular ALE has very little activity from what I and others have been able to measure on actual on the air use.
Hams that use hardware embedded wideband ALE are not going to be using ALE 400 without a separate computer. While I do not recommend anyone buy such rigs due to the rapidly changing technology that can make such modes obsolete, there are probably only a handful of hams who have these kinds of rigs. But if hams stay on wideband ALE, then that reduces the practical use of ALE 400. Ironically, ALE 400 is very much better in performance than wideband ALE since it can work deeper into the noise. It has a much more appropriate footprint for use in the narrow text digital parts of the bands. The slower speed may be mitigated by the fact that it can work when wideband ALE does not get through at all. I would propose that wide band ALE should only be used in the wide bandwidth voice portions of the bands and ALE 400 be used in the narrower text digital portions. The last thing we want to see happening is someone operating on a 400 Hz wide mode and then switching suddenly to a 2000 + Hz mode and causing severe interference to other stations. My experience has been that 2000 Hz modes are difficult to place without causing problems in the shared service of amateur radio. I am not sure that there will be many of us operating ALE 400 (or wide band ALE) anyway. I know that I would have no interest in tying up my rig with scanning the bands since I can not be doing that and also operating my normal HF activities. When I have used the narrow 8FSK50 mode, it has almost only been on FAE 400, the ARQ version of ALE 400. Perhaps some of us envision using the FAE 400 mode to send error free data to other stations on HF and do it with a relatively narrow footprint available on a MS Windows computer using a soundcard. While there is an ARQ mode available on PSK with Linux OS, it does not seem to work very well when you compare it to the 8FSK50 waveform of FAE 400. What might be practical though, is to have some spot frequencies that we could use for ALE 400/FAE 400 calling and chatting? Since it is relatively narrow, perhaps up 5 kHz from the normal PSK31 frequencies? Since there seems to be a standard 1625 Hz center frequency, the "frequency" is the same as the dial frequency. 73, Rick, KV9U Andrew O'Brien wrote: > I think many people have had time to experiment with ALE 400 in ARQ > mode and the feedback about the throughput has been very good. Most > people have connected via arranged contacts and the use of the K3UK > sked page . Several people have suggested this mode is so effective > that it might be useful in emergency communication situations. So, I > think it is time to seriously test ALE400 under something more > elaborate than arranged contacts and keyboard chats. > > I have made not secret of the fact that I think the PC-ALE software > has the best capabilities of any other digital software when it comes > to locating other stations. The sounding , scan, pause, decode and > resume , ability of PC-ALE is amazing. For ALE400 to be useful it > must be able to do some of what standard ALE via PC-ALE can do. > Since Bonnie has suggested that ALE 400 should not share suggested > standard amateur ALE channels, is it not time for ALE 400 users to > develop a few suggested sounding and net channels? Perhaps just > three, 40, 30, and 20M and begin occasional scans. Should the ALE > 400 community also develop a NET CALL protocol and also establish a > weekly net? > > I think the initial experiments have been conducted very well, time to > move to the next level and see if ALE400 has any future beyond a geek > plaything :>) > >
