Hi Andy,
I made mention of years ago via this forum that AQC-ALE is the the solution to
your desires in these areas and that is still true and the neew features I have
coded into PC-ALE and those that I am currntly working on will aid you in your
pursuits.
AQC-ALE ( which is only found in PC-ALE, MARS-ALE and Military ALE transceivers
) makes use of the same standard tones as standard ALE, however the data
transmissions for all things involving Soundings if used and linking calls are
very much shorter. The scan rate in PC-ALE for AQC-ALE is fixed at 5 ch/sec
which means radios must typically be operated at 9600 baud or greater serial
rates and FAST AGC is an absolute must.
AQC-ALE has a "Meet Me" feature that will steer the linked station(s) to
another channel in the current band or any other band as programmed in a common
scan group between the users, the channel numbers for all channels in the scan
group being used MUST match for all users in a group else the "Meet Me" feature
will not work properly in getting all sttions to the same new channel. The
setup for your purposes would be that your channels planned for "Meet Me" using
no ALE for follow-on would be setup up in your scan groups as non-sounding
channels if you are going to do any sounding at all, which is not at all
required. As long as there is an organized group all scanning the same channels
and all using a scan group that matches for all users than you can just make a
single station or any multiple station linking call in AQC-ALE to establish the
link, then change to one or more of the channels that you have pre-programmed
as a "Meet Me" channel to see if its free, then go back to the channel you
linked on and sen the "Meet Me" for the free channel. Then one you are on the
new channel you can assume that the stations you are inlink with are there as
well, if ALE is permitted and is to be used you can them use AMD, DBM or DTM or
another follow on protocol as you choose. I have done all this on the air in
the past and it works great.
New features in the last PC-ALE release such as releasing RESOURCES make it
easier than ever to use other PC software for follow-on after an ALE link and
newer features that I have coded and some being worked on add even more 3rd
party interfacing, coming soon will be emulation of KENWOOD and ICOM radio
command sets where program such as VCOM will allow for any 3rd party program to
control whhich ever of the over 200 make/models radios supported by PC-ALE
after the ALE link, which also opens to door to any program that supports
either or those two brands to control radios not normally found in HAM
applications, you will be able to have PC-ALE just sit there with all but the
emulation serial port released and use it as a radio control server if your
non-ham rig is not supported.
Please not that I only see messages to this forum when I log in via Yahoo so
replies to any questions may not be fast coming here, however I do get direct
e-mails via the MultiPSK and HFlink forums.
/s/ Steve, N2CKH
www.n2ckh.com/PC_ALE_FORUM/
--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Andy obrien wrote:
>
> Just to make myself clear, I am not suggesting that we actually use the
> standard ALE digital mode for calling CQ. I'd be fine with it, but it is
> quite wide and would start a debate all over again. I'm also not suggesting
> we use ALE-style soundings that are unattended. What I like about the
> general concept of ALE is a standard calling mode and then use of received
> data to establish what mode can be used to maintain the current QSO (or
> "link" ) .
