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 <k3uka...@...> 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" ) .
