ALE On-The-Air Week 'AOTAW 2006'
Taste the ALE On The Air (13-23 October 2006) HF Automatic Link Establishment
Starts: 0001 UTC Friday 13 OCTOBER (13/10/06)
Ends: 1159 UTC Monday 23 OCTOBER (23/10/06)
10 Days of worldwide Amateur Radio ALE activity...
More information: http://hflink.com
HFLINK is sponsoring a new International Amateur Radio event called:
ALE On The Air Week (AOTAW 2006).
All ham radio operators worldwide are invited to participate in 10 days
of amateur radio HF-ALE Automatic Link Establishment and HF Selcall activity.
AOTAW is an open operating event to explore ALE communications and equipment.
The experience gained by participation is also useful for HF emergency
and disaster
relief communications.
There are now many hundreds of hams worldwide with ALE stations. The
AOTAW gives operators a chance to exercise ALE transceivers, antennas,
software, systems, and operating procedures.
ALE Operator Certificate
HFLINK issues a unique ALE Operator Certificate to operators who participate
in AOTAW. To qualify for an ALE Operator Certificate, the operator must
initiate and complete at least 5 QSOs through Automatic Link Establishment
with other ALE operators.
The ALE link must then be followed by a communication either by voice
or texting. Additional certificate endorsement is issued by HFLINK for
operators who link and QSO with 25 ALE stations or more. Logs: see HFLINK.COM
website for
details: http://hflink.com
About AOTAW
AOTAW is not a contest. All operators are reminded to be courteous and
operate within the recognised Amateur Radio ALE channels and standards.
AOTAW provides a way for more operators to gain valuable practical knowledge
and expertise in the operation of an Amateur Radio ALE station. Amateur
operators who use ALE for government and non-governmental organisations
may be especially interested in participation, for this is a chance to
explore the various operational aspects of ALE that may not be utilised
otherwise. The 10 days of AOTAW enables operators to participate as they
can, for any amount of
time in the event, and to experience ALE operation under various ionospheric
propagation conditions.
ABOUT HFLINK
HFLINK is an international resource: for radio operators using ALE Automatic
Link Establishment and Selcall Selective Calling; for the development
of communications for organisations, Emergency / Relief networks; and
for the development of ALE operating methods applicable to Amateur Radio
Service. HFLINK is the Frequency and Address Coordination group for Amateur
Radio ALE and Selective Calling. HFLINK Website: http://hflink.com
What is ALE?
ALE is the humorous acronym for the lofty-sounding Automatic Link Establishment.
With the capability to call up a specific station, a group of stations,
a net... or just CQ, ALE is a versatile system for connecting operators
for voice, data, text, instant messaging, or image QSOs.
A radio operator initiating a call, can within minutes have the ALE automatically
pick a frequency that has a good
propagation path. It signals the operators on both ends, so they can begin
communicating with each other immediately. In this respect, it can eliminate
the longstanding need for repetitive calling on pre-determined time schedules
and monitoring static on HF. It is a great tool for finding optimum propagation
between stations in real-time, while avoiding guesswork, beacon listening,
and complicated
HF prediction charts altogether. These days, ALE is most commonly used
for hooking up operators for voice QSOs on SSB, but there are many other
useful features, such as the popular short text messages.
ALE in Ham Radio
For the past 5 years, a group of Amateur Radio operators has joined together
to use and develop ALE methods for ham radio. The number of hams has grown
from just a handful active in 2001, to about a thousand today.
Some are following the traditional ham curiosity to explore
interesting aspects of communications; others are developing dependable
HF nets, or just using it to keep in touch with a circle of ham friends.
The need to call up emergency nets or inter-operability and liason with
government HF systems has led many hams to adopt a
government ALE standard, called FED-1045 or MIL-STD 188-141. This standard
caught on slowly in the ham community, initiated by a few operators with
limited government surplus gear and some with expensive commercial equipment
having embedded ALE or hardware controllers. Now, with a ham HF transceiver,
a computer as the controller, and an
appropriate antenna system, hams can harness the power of ALE.
How ALE Works
Each ham radio ALE station uses the operator's callsign as an address
in the ALE controller.When not actively in a QSO with another station,
each HF SSB transceiver constantly scans through a list of frequencies,
listening for its callsign. To reach a specific station, the caller simply
enters the callsign just like dialing a phone number. The ALE controller
selects the best available frequency and sends out brief selective calling
signals containing the callsigns.
When the distant scanning station detects the first few characters of
its callsign, it stops scanning and stays on that frequency. The two stations'
ALE controllers automatically handshake to confirm that a link is established
and they are ready to communicate. The receiving station, which was muted
up until now, will typically emit an audible alarm and visual alert for
the receiving operator of the incoming call.
It also indicates the callsign of the linked station.
The operators then can talk in a regular QSO using any mode they choose.
At the conclusion of the QSO, one of the stations sends a disconnect signal
to the other station, and they each return their ALE stations to the scanning
mode.
Some military / commercial HF transceivers are available with ALE options.
Recently, several HF transceivers at costs under $1500 have become available
with ALE built-in.
PC-ALE
Thanks to Charles G4GUO, most amateur operators
use the PC-ALE soundcard ALE software interfaced to a ham transceiver.
PCALE software is full of ALE features, and is available for
free download on the HFLINK website: http://hflink.com
CQ ALE!
73 Bonnie KQ6XA
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