Hi John, For ARRL members, that piece was on page 9 of the Oct 2007 QST.
More and more ALE will become integrated into the Amateur Radio Service (ARS) do to its significant advantages, it is just such an obvious path to take with respect to the role that the ARS plays in ECOM support for one thing in my opinion. This would have happened 10 years ago or more if it were not for the cost of ALE hardware and the fact that no PC software solution was available, but that is now changing on both fronts what with free software and hardware manufacturers getting near the $1000USD price point for a complete ALE transceivers and TNC's with ALE likely to follow. Reading the various comments on this and other electronic forums of those that are not, let's say, pro ALE, reminds me of all the that I have read and heard about when other advances came along to the ARS prior to my becoming a Radio Amateur and those that I witnessed first hand, change for many is just not easy to accept, not matter the benefit. Anyhow, all things ALE with respect to the Amateur Radio Service are really just getting started, I think it will be very interesting to look back at it in a few years, especially when we start seeing CODEC's in transceivers with a USB port, I was very excited to see that in the ICOM R1500/2500 receiver that I added to MARS-ALE over a year ago and recently to the PC-ALE baseline, getting the CODEC out of the PC is huge WRT noise and jitter, just why it is taking so long to see it turn up in transceivers when the ARS has long ago now standardized on such communications software I don't quite understand, I hear the Elecraft K3 may be doing so and I hope to see the new IC-7200 have an internal CODEC, it does not look like one is coming in the IC-7700 from what I have read to date, who knows maybe Kenwood or Yaesu/Vertex or even Ten Tec has something in the works? /s/ Steve, N2CKH At 10:44 AM 10/2/2007, you wrote: >piece on Interoperability. > >http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2007/10/01/1/?nc=1
