Automatic Link Establishment - Basis For HF Interoperable Communications

Basis For HF Interoperable Communications

Interoperation is a critical issue for the disparate entities which use radiocommunications to fulfill the needs of organizations. Largely due to the ubiquity of 2G ALE, it became the primary method for providing interoperation on HF between governmental and non-governmental disaster relief and emergency communications entities, and amateur radio volunteers. With digital techniques increasingly employed in communications equipment, a universal digital calling standard was needed, and ALE filled the gap. Nearly every major HF radio manufacturer in the world builds ALE radios to the 2G standard to meet the high demand that new installations of HF radio systems conform to this standard protocol. Disparate entities that historically used incompatible radio methods were then able to call and converse with each other using the common 2G ALE platform. Some manufacturers and organizations have utilized the AMD feature of ALE to expand the performance and connectivity. In some cases, this has been successful, and in other cases, the use of proprietary preamble or embedded commands has led to interoperability problems.