Thanks Andy for an excellent summary of ALE I do have one slight correction: > enough. The concept of ALE requires automated beacons, "soundings", > that are often unattended. ALE does not "require" soundings. It's still a huge value add to be able to find a station or assemble a net through a net call completely independent of LQA data gathered from soundings.
But the LQA data allows a targeted call on the bands the stations were known to be active on and have the best S/N. Which actually reduces the transmissions needed to establish a link. Calls (like CQ's) are much longer typically than soundings ever are. And better S/N reduces transmission time. And most of the math naysayers do to try to demonstrate that ALE will clog the bands is simply flawed. Any given station only has a path to a very small number of ALE stations on any given band at any given time. Park on the most commonly used frequency on 20m, and ALE is still few and far between. A transmission you did not hear and did not have a path to is not QRM, even if you know it occurred. We have a significant amount of data on this. I can show & demonstrate who's hearing who at any given time amongst an increasing pool of stations. Enough that we are getting ready use statistical analysis to really understand what the network dynamics are on HF. I consistently see examples of the best S/N on a non-NVIS band. Which reduces traffic/congestion/contention in the crowded lower bands. ALE starts on the higher bands and works down on non-LQA calls, which also moves traffic off the lower bands. I slightly disagree with my colleague Steve, while for MARS the majority of ALE is NVIS, in the ham side our NVIS bands are so crowded and cramped that the best comms occur higher. The goal is to have HFN stations spreadout enough that one or more will be able to provide comms whether NVIS or skip based. But Andy's post is still an excellent summary of ALE! And my posts are not an attempt to get people to use ALE, shoot, use the mode you want. They are an attempt to debunk some of the FUD which resurfaces again and again. Have fun, Alan km4ba Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at http://www.obriensweb.com/sked DRCC contest info : http://www.obriensweb.com/drcc.htm Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
