AUTOMATIC SOUNDING

The testing of selected channels or paths by providing a very brief beacon-like identifying broadcast that may be used by other stations to evaluate connectivity, propagation , and availability , and to identify known working channels for possible later use for communications or calling. ( 188 ) Note 1: Automatic soundings are primarily intended to increase the efficiency of the automatic link establishment (ALE) function, thereby increasing system throughput . Note 2: Sounding information is used for identifying the specific channel to be used for a particular ALE connectivity attempt.