Hi Andrew, I don't know what has prompted this thread on your part, however, the only threat to ALE is AQC-ALE in my opinion and that's not at all bad. However most Amateurs that are working with ALE have yet to realize the full potential of ALE, let alone the potential of AQC-ALE that is available in PC-ALE. The AQC-ALE performance advantages over ALE are amazing, however its use leaves 99% of the ALE hardware users out in the cold as AQC-ALE is only to be found in the latest, most expensive equipments, thus having it available in PC-ALE is just to state of the art.
As a licensed Radio Amateur for nearly 30 years and an SWL for about 15 years before that, its been my observation that the Amateur Radio Service if nothing else, adapts to technology that serves the Amateur Radio Service best. I see ALE, especially in the U.S., becoming more important to the Amateur Radio Service due to the large move underway by the U.S. Government in the use of ALE within Federal circles and those that serve and communicate with them down to the State level and below, thus expect to see RACES and ARES become more ALE active in the near future, the hand writing is clearly on the wall. In general there is great potential for the application of ALE within the Amateur Radio Service, especially in the areas of ECOM and HF e-mail networks and other follow on activity in my opinion. In addition, due to the nature of Amateur Radio and today's and future PC Sound Device Modem (PCSDM) based tools, advances can take place at a much faster pace in areas that would not be seen in the hardware Modem/TNC world where the rules of government licensing bodies around the world do not limit such advances such as in the U.S. with the FCC. Those that want to pursue the developing the PCSDM path of ALE systems operation simply need to choose the proper system components to do so if they are not already in place, many older and certain newer radio and computer equipments are just not up to the task for various reasons. ALE was developed originally to be hardware based and to a set of Federal and Military standards and as many Amateurs use such hardware based systems, an effort needs to be made to be backward compatible with said systems in my opinion. However that should not mean that advances for Amateur Radio use such as FAE ARQ by F6CTE in MultiPSK should be held off do to existing limitations in any areas of ALE systems in use. Users of ALE must choose their method of ALE and all system components, with ALE hardware systems the application of 3rd party tools for follow on DLP activity is very common, aside from AMD some hardware ALE systems provide DTM and some DTM and DBM, use can also be made of the PCSDM based or TNC/Modem based DLP, its just a matter of tying the systems together to maintain the ALE linked state by monitoring the follow on activity state status. The use of AMD is the common denominator in the ALE world simply because the bulk of all ALE hardware modem/controllers only offer AMD, however that is not the case in the PCSDM based ALE world and bridging the two worlds for the follow on DLP is all that is required, its up to the user base to choose what their standard follow on DLP choice(s) are for interoperability. In the Military ALE world its usually MIL-STD-188-110 modem based with one or more waveforms that are used for follow on, in the U.S. Government world its usually a commercial TNC/Modem using Clover, GTOR or PACTOR I, which along with other proprietary protocols (some on MIL-STD-188-110x modem) is the case with other Governments, Para-Military, some 3rd World Militaries as well Commercial users. The question to be answered in the Amateur Radio world is what shall become the follow on ARQ protocol standard(s)? For FSK modems my vote is DBM ARQ, FAE ARQ, GTOR and PACTOR I as the main choices, as to higher speed modems the situation is less clear due to existing rules in many countries, especially in the U.S., however the MIL-STD-188-110x modem is an obvious choice, as are the newer CLOVER and PACTOR x modes which could all be implemented via the PCSDM as well as via hardware if they were not proprietary. /s/ Steve, N2CKH At 12:33 PM 6/18/2007, you wrote: >I wonder if ALE for amateur radio use is in danger of demise as the >result of varying formats, similar to the old video tape format >saga. The public's demand for a method of recording video was such >that one format survived and the industry flourished. With ALE that >amateur demand is so limited that it could flounder rather than flourish. > >Currently available software for ALE hams is apparently restricted >to PC-ALE, MARS-ALE, and Multipsk. PC-ALE has an incompatibility >with many rigs and decodes poorly with less than optimal >soundcards. Multipsk decodes well with less than optimal >soundcards, but does not perform many of the automated ALE >procedures. MARS-ALE has many advantages over PC-ALE but its very >nature restricts it to use only by MARS operators. > >A small group of hams has worked very hard at getting ALE a >"toe-hold" in the amateur radio world. However, the potential user >of ALE has to battle many more performance/compatibility issues than >the average ham faces for other amateur modes of >communication. Even when thing appear simple (like getting on PSK31 >or RTTY) we lose people because they see it as too complicated. I >fear that ALE will not grow unless there are significant >enhancements in the development of software that is compatilable >with ...most rigs in use since 1990, most soundcards used in cheap >computers since 2000, and the most commonly interfaces used >(Rigblaster, Microham, SignaLink, etc) > >Since the three software products I mentioned are mostly free of >cost to the ham, it is hard to criticize the authors that >design the software . However, ALE's amateur demise might not be >for off . In fact, maybe there really is no ALE amateur movment to >suffer a demise. Would we consider a mode used by less that 50 hams >world-wide to really be anything more than one of those obscure ham >experiments? Yes, I know...out of "obscure experiments" has come >many a "killer app", but I worry that ALE needs compatibility and >interoperability before in can grow. > >
