Good comments and questions, John, Although I was removed by Bonnie from the HFLink group for questioning some of the ethics of the way things are being done, and her overwhelming anger that someone might dare ask the FCC to rule on this, I still feel that ALE modes may have some useful attributes on the ham bands.
The wide mode (perhaps 141A might be a better descriptor) is not very sensitive compared to the newer technology such as PSK31 or especially MFSK16, but the narrow ALE mode is much better and competitive with PSK31 at least. PC-ALE is a nice stand alone piece of software. It took a huge effort for me, but I was able to eventually test it with my ICOM 756 Pro 2 once they had properly functioning software. From what I understand there seems to be no interest in adding the 400 mode. The overall purpose of ALE is several fold. The primary purpose was to develop a way for non-technical users to find a path open between two stations. Some may find this useful for propagation, but many of us who have years of experience pretty much know what bands are open at a given time. So that use is limited. But ALE can be used as a annunciation to signal other stations, or groups of stations, that you wish to contact them. You could scan some frequencies of your choosing and the station on the other end can call you with the proper SELCAL, not unlike we did with RTTY decades ago. For stations that are closer in, you might even find it useful to park on a given NVIS frequency and be on standby without having your rig audio. Then when you receive a connection, it will beep your computer and a message could be left. Normally, you would need to maintain control operator status to operate legally and not leave it unattended. I agree that I have not really heard many messages being sent. When I was on the HFLinkNet group (a further subset of Bonnie's), we were not even allowed to discuss anything we saw on that group with other hams or we would be removed from the group. Needless to say, I found this unacceptable and left the group. But I will reveal that they were begging for people to send SMS Messages to at least test their system. I was probably one of the few who actually used it! And it can work. Not in a practical manner yet, but perhaps someday if it could handle e-mail for casual use. I would not recommend building this into your emergency plans except as a back up to other more robust approaches. But considering that it may be able to work with sound cards on Windows OS, I believe that it has value. When you make a connection and are in the text digital area, you can then send some of the short messages back and forth, which I admit is very cumbersome and not a practical activity for most digital hams. There may be a way to connect via ARQ messaging although I never found anyone to do that kind of testing. You can also switch to another mode after using ALE for initiating the connection. In fact, my suggestion is that we could use 141ALE on the voice frequencies. It is matched up well for the wider bandwidth of voice and is completely legal to use for signaling. It is not legal to send text messages back and forth on the voice frequencies however, so caution needs to be applied. Since 141A is not that robust a mode, and either is SSB voice, they tend to complement each other. The FAE 400 mode, is spectacular for keyboarding. Once you are connected, you have no over command. Just type and the computers/rigs take care of the details to get an error free message through. It is almost exactly the way Clover II worked in the past except it is free! And it seems to work better than Clover II. 73, Rick, KV9U John Bradley wrote: > > I agree that we have all had a great time fooling with the mode, and > VE5TLW and myself have been using > > ALE400, together with Outlook express to pass messages, both ALE 400 > and 141A. It is a terrific piece of software and bodes well for the > future. In the next few days we will have this software set up at an > Emergency Operations Center (EOC) , running 24/7 with the added > feature of being able to remotely access the desktop , to maintain the > software and further experiment with it. Call is VE5GPM. > > I am not a fan of PCALE , for a couple of reasons, not the least of > which, given that I am reasonably bright, not being able to get it > running with my TS480SAT. From what I can see so far, it scans really > well , but have no idea of how well it would pass messages. Is there > two different versions of PCALE, one that we find on the ham bands and > one used for MARS operations? And what are the differences? > > Is the intention with PCALE to establish which band/frequency has the > best path and then use another mode for passing traffic? In all my > listening to ALE frequencies I have not heard any PCALE message > traffic, just lots of soundings. > > I’m certainly up for nets and further work with ALE400, and side by > side comparisons to PCALE if I can ever get it to work. I’m also open > to where we should part our EOC station on anything between 80 and 20M > . As Canadians, we have a bandwidth restriction on 30M to 1khz , which > cuts out the use of 141A there. > > Comments? > > John > > VE5MU > Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at http://www.obriensweb.com/drsked/drsked.php View the DRCC numbers database at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/database 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! 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