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Part One: A Beginner’s Guide to ALE

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Don Moore–noted author, traveler, and DXer–who shares the following post:

A Beginner’s Guide to ALE: Part One

By Don Moore

Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.

To me, part of the excitement of DXing has always been logging new stations. From the very beginning (over fifty years ago), I went after shortwave broadcast (SWBC), medium wave, and voice utility DX. Up until the mid-90s, I usually averaged logging one new SWBC station per week. Today, it’s hard to add more than one or two each year. There are also far fewer voice utility stations on the air today. At least medium wave is still going strong. Several years ago, my quest for logging new stations on the shortwave frequencies got me involved in DXing digital utility stations. I wrote an article here on monitoring DSC stations: https://swling.com/blog/2022/11/guest-post-monitoring-digital-selective-calling-dcs-with-yadd/).

But DSC is just one of several digital modes that I’ve been playing around with. The one that I’ve found most interesting – and the one that has yielded hundreds of new stations in numerous countries – is ALE.

Now, I am not an expert at monitoring ALE. I’m just an advanced beginner. But I think I know enough to help other beginners get started. And if you are an ALE expert reading this, I welcome your additions, corrections, and even criticisms to the comments section. I still have a lot to learn, too.

What is ALE?

Ever since the early days of radio, one of the most important uses of the shortwave spectrum has been two-way communication. It provides a means for an organization’s far-flung offices or bases to communicate without relying on external infrastructure. That remains true even today because satellites can malfunction and evil powers can cut undersea cables.

But shortwave isn’t consistent. The frequencies that work best between any two points will vary by time of day, time of year, solar conditions, and a host of other factors. In the old days, radio operators had to understand radio propagation to make an educated guess as to the best frequency to use to reach a particular distant station. Sometimes they guessed wrong, and stations would struggle to communicate or maybe not even connect. ALE, or Automatic Link Establishment, was designed to make two-way shortwave communication as simple as making a telephone call. Depending on your point of view, it has taken the guesswork out of frequency selection … or made it so easy that any dummy can be a radio operator.

In an ALE system, each station is assigned a unique identifier and the network has a set of preconfigured frequencies spaced throughout the shortwave spectrum. For example, here’s a partial list of frequencies and stations for the United States Air Force, one of the most active ALE networks.

USAF Common Frequencies: 4721, 5684, 5702, 6715, 6721, 8968, 9025, 11181, 11226, 13215, 15043, 17976, 18003, 23337, 27870 kHz

Most Active USAF Stations

ADW Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA
AED Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska
CRO Croughton Air Base, United Kingdom
GUA US Air Force Base, Guam
HAW Hawthorn Air Force Base, Ascencion Island
HIK Hickman Air Force Base, Hawaii
ICZ US Air Force Base, Sigonella, Sicily, Italy
JDG US Air Force Base, Diego Garcia Island
JNR US Air Force Base, Salinas, Puerto Rico
JTY US Air Force Base, Tokyo, Japan
MCC Beale Air Force Base, California, USA
OFF Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USA
PLA Lajes Field, Azores

The key to the system is a piece of software called the ALE controller. At periodic intervals, the ALE controller at a particular station, say PLA, will loop through the frequencies and send a “sounding” out on each one. That’s just a short digital identification burst saying “This is PLA!” Here’s a recording of an ALE sounding.

That’s not the kind of signal that anyone would enjoy listening to all day. Fortunately, no human being has to do that. Instead, all the other controllers in the network are monitoring every frequency and automatically make note of how well PLA is received (or not) on each channel. Now, if someone at Offutt Air Force Base needs to send a message to Lajes, they just go to their ALE controller and enter “PLA.” The system will select the best frequency to use based on the most recent observations. That’s the basic explanation. If you want to understand more, see the links at the bottom.

Monitoring ALE

You can’t DX ALE with your ears. A computer program has to do it for you. There are several hobby programs that do the job, and I’m going to look at two of them. The first one will get you started, and the second one will take your ALE DXing to the top.

I began with Sorcerer, a free program that decodes several dozen digital modes. See the links below for downloading. The program doesn’t need to be installed. Just unzip the file and place the executable in a suitable location. Next, you need an SDR and an SDR application. I prefer SDR-Console for digital work, but any SDR program will work if you can feed the audio into a virtual audio cable. And that’s the other thing you need – a direct audio connection from the audio output of your SDR application to Sorcerer. There are several similar products available, but I recommend VB-Cable. Your first VB-Cable is free, and you only need one to run Sorcerer. If you want to expand, you can buy more VB-Cables later.

Here’s the main window that opens when you start Sorcerer.

The first time you use Sorcerer you will need to connect it to your VB-Cable. On the menu select File then Options. Find the cable under the Soundcard list and save.

Open your SDR application and tune it to 11181 kHz. Set to USB mode with a filter value of around 2.8 kHz. That is one of the most heavily used frequencies by US Air Force bases around the world. Wherever you are, something should be received. Next, set the audio output of your SDR application to go to VB-Cable. In SDR-Console that’s done by a drop-down box under the current frequency. Next, slide the volume level all the way up.

Now go back to Sorcerer and confirm you are getting audio from the SDR application.

Now select Add Decoder from the top menu in Sorcerer. Then select SELCALL on the left side and scroll down and double-click to select MID-STD 188-141A ALE from the options.

That will open a large decoder window, which you can resize as needed.

Now, go get a cup of coffee and come back in about thirty minutes.

Sample Sorcerer Output

Let’s take a look at some sample output from Sorcerer. These loggings were made on 7915 kHz, a frequency used by the Carabineros (National Police) in Chile. First, Sorcerer shows the time and date the decoding was done per the current time on the laptop. If you are monitoring live, those are the correct date and time of the reception. For the record, I was decoding from SDR spectrum recordings in these examples, so the times and dates are not the real ones. (I got the real ones from the spectrum recordings.) TWS stands for “This Was” and EOM for “End Of Message.” ILLAPEL and TALTAL are the station identifications, which in this case correspond to two Chilean cities. Note that sometimes the end of the ID can be cut off if reception isn’t clear.

These next loggings are from the national police of Colombia on 7560 kHz. Villavicencio is a city east of the Andes, and Sumapaz is a national park in the remote mountains south of Bogotá.

Here is a string of loggings on 7527 kHz, a frequency used by the US Coast Guard and other US government agencies. But here we have a TO, which means someone is trying to call X09. That happens to be a C-27J Spartan, a medium-range surveillance aircraft used by the US Coast Guard. Who’s doing the calling shows up in the final line. TIS (“This Is”) is a variation on TWS. LNT is the identification for CAMSLANT, the big US Coast Guard station in Portsmouth, Virginia.

The Limits of Single Frequency Monitoring

DXing live and monitoring one highly active frequency at a time with Sorcerer makes for a good introduction to ALE. However, if you just stick to monitoring easy frequencies like the USAF ones, you’ll get a lot of logs, but it won’t take long until you feel as if you’ve gotten everything. There are hundreds more ALE frequencies out there, such as the Chilean and Colombian police ones. But those are less active and might only be received at your location when conditions are just right. If you go after those by live monitoring with your SDR parked on a single frequency, you’ll spend a lot of days without getting a single hit.

What is needed is a way to cast a wide net to catch all the activity in a particular band. The idea I came up with was to use the Spectrum Analyzer feature of the SDR-Console program. See my article on this highly useful feature for an understanding of how this works.

Using an Airspy HF+ Discovery, I would make several hours of spectrum recordings and then use the Spectrum Analyzer to visually find the ALE signals. Here’s a string of three long ALE bursts on 7953 kHz and a single weaker one on 7991 kHz. (Some other digital modes look the same on screen.)

I just had to click on a signal to play it into Sorcerer to get the ID. The process worked really well, and I found a lot of stations this way. But it was also tedious and time-consuming. I wanted something better … something that did the hard work for me. That’s what technology is for, right?

Stay tuned for Part Two …

Carlos’ Illustrated Radio Listening Report and Recording of the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran (February 5, 2026)

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report of a recent Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran broadcast.

Carlos notes:

Iranian armed forces are ready for any scenario, Voice of Islamic Republic of Iran, 15135 kHz

Click here to view on YouTube.

Sunny Jim’s Trance Journey: February 2026 Program Schedule

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February programme now out!! 60 minutes of music you’ve likely never heard before (except for one) and – contrary to some popular belief – proof that they do make music as good as they used to, and, you can hear the words…!! (Yes I know… again I’m sticking my head above the parapet to be shot down…!!)

Programme schedule attached (above) – why not tune in & make contact for one of our eQSL cards, and then listen online at www.sjtjradio.com to our Mixcloud player. It’s a bit like tuning in to a fading MW signal ‘from a point at sea’ & then buying the album – and hearing so much more!! eQSLs issued for all types of listening in…

Happy DXing / Happy Listening !!
Jim Salmon
www.sjtjradio.com

Carlos’ Illustrated Radio Listening Report and Recording of CGTN (February 1, 2026)

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and noted political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following illustrated radio listening report of a recent CGTN broadcast.

Carlos notes:

Tehran has confirmed a framework for discussions but remains on high alert for a possible US attack, CGTN Radio

Click here to view on YouTube.

International Reply Coupons (IRCs) are being phased out as of December 31, 2026

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Paul Evans for pointing us to this update from the Universal Postal Union (UPU): after nearly 120 years since their introduction in 1907, International Reply Coupons (IRCs) are being phased out as of 31 December 2026.

IRCs have long served as a universal postage currency, allowing SWLs to prepay return postage for international listener reports in the postal systems of the UPU’s 192 member countries. The UPU’s decision to discontinue IRCs reflects broader changes in international postal services and the shift toward digital communication, but existing coupons will remain valid and exchangeable through the end of 2026. A special commemorative product marking the IRC’s legacy is also planned as part of this transition.

Read the full press release here: https://www.upu.int/en/press-release/2025/end-of-a-chapter-start-of-a-legacy-the-international-reply-coupon-enters-the-history-books

Radio Taiwan International and Radio Prague Recent Highlights

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor David Iurescia, who shares two stories from the world of international broadcasting:

First, Radio Taiwan International highlights a recent long-distance shortwave exchange between students in Taiwan and Norway. The project combines broadcasting, media literacy, cultural exchange, and disaster-resilient communications, and even prompted reception reports from listeners across northern Europe. Click here to read the full article: https://www.rti.org.tw/en/news?uid=3&pid=188096

Second, Radio Prague International is marking 90 years of international broadcasting this year. To commemorate the anniversary, RPI has released a new series of QSL cards. Click here to read the full article: https://english.radio.cz/90-years-air-radio-prague-international-marks-anniversary-qsl-cards-8875728

Cold War DX and Tactical Callsigns

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by Dan Greenall

During the Cold War years, many different signals could be found on shortwave that cannot be heard today. For example, there were two Germanys, several broadcasters from the USSR not including Radio Moscow, Radio Free Europe and others.

I have uploaded audio clips of these stations and others to the InternetArchive.

Here are a few of the links.

https://archive.org/details/rbi-berlin-gdr-1970
https://archive.org/details/radio-rodina
https://archive.org/details/radio-free-europe-1971

If you were adventurous like me, willing to tune outside of the regular assigned broadcast bands, and flip the BFO switch “on”, stations with odd sounding names like Giant Step, Sky King, Fanfare or Ivanhoe could sometimes be heard. These were typically tactical calls used by the U.S. military.

I recently dusted off an old 3-ring binder to look up what were some of the tactical callsigns that I was able to log from my southern Ontario listening post. They included Missionary, Toreador, Democrat, Retail, and Capsule.

My old recordings of stations “Pawnee” and “Fanfare” can be found on the Internet Archive here:

https://archive.org/details/u.-s.-navcomsta-aok-rota-spain-pawnee

Pawnee:

Fanfare:

Information about these stations was hard to find, however, radio hobby magazines and SW club monthly bulletins were a good place to look. I have reprinted (below) some related material from Communications World magazine, which ran from 1971 to 1981.

If you would like to browse through all of their publications, follow this link:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Communications_World.htm

CW Fall-Winter 1973 pages 32-3

“The Navy also has its point-to-pointers, including NSS, Washington D.C.; NPM, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and NPG, San Francisco. Overseas there are Navy stations in many locations, such as Naples, Italy (NNI), Londonderry, Northern Ireland (NST), Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico (NRR), San Miguel, Philippines (NPO), and elsewhere. Some military stations use tactical call names, rather than call letters, which makes the DXer’s hopes of identifying them rather slim. For security reasons these stations identify with names such as Overland, Kingfisher and the like. These call names are changed frequently and seldom is the hobby listener able to figure out just where the station he’s hearing is located. Some of these identifiers have been used so consistently, over the years. that DXers have managed to figure out their real identities. Toreador, for instance, is a name used by Navy Operational Radio, San Francisco; Pacific Radio is at Pearl Harbor; Ivanhoe is the U.S. Naval Communications Station, Norfolk, Virginia; and a whole series of stations using the code name Raspberry (as in Raspberry Jax, located at the Naval Air Station, Jacksonville”

CW Spring-Summer 1975 page 36

“SWLs will soon note that the armed forces don’t always use call letters. Instead, tactical call signs may be used to identify the station. You might, for instance, hear a station calling itself Ivanhoe or Capsule. Looking Glass or Migraine. Some tactical calls are changed frequently, others are used year after year and, as a result, no longer pose identification problems for the utility SWL. “Ivanhoe” is the identifier used by the Navy’s important Norfolk, VA base. Navy installations in Morocco. Iceland and Spain identify as “Fanfare,” “Port Call,” and “Pawnee,” respectively. The U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) has for years maintained a regular airborne alert. It is no military secret that at any time, day or night, SAC has jumbo bombers aloft—supposedly loaded with nuclear armaments—in readiness to retaliate should this country ever come under attack from an enemy. Clearly it is essential that these planes keep in continuous contact with ground command stations. Shortwave radio is one of the means employed. This SAC radio network is known as Sky King. Coded communications pass between SAC bases and the jets probably several times each hour. SWLs who stumble on these transmissions will hear, as part of the routine radio traffic, authenticator codes, usually two phonetic letters such as “Alfa-Tango.” The purpose of these codes is to assure plane commanders that the rest of the message is genuine. Various Air Force bases identify themselves in radio communications either by base name, such as “Hickam” (Hawaii’s Hickam Air Force Base), or by tactical calls. “Democrat” is used by March AFB, CA, and “Retail” is the call of Barksdale AFB, LA. SAC also has a flying command post, a back-up measure that supposedly would take command of SAC forces should “a nuclear attack wipe out the headquarters at Offutt AFB, NE. The command post in the sky uses the tactical call “Looking Glass.” Some SAC frequencies to watch are 6,762, 9,027, 11,220, 13,245, 14,744 and 17,875 kHz. There are other Air Force frequencies to watch for plane-to-ground. and vice versa, transmissions. Among them are 6,738, 8,764, 8,988, 9,020, 11,200. 13,201 and 17,993 kHz. “Raspberry” is a network tactical call used by naval air stations. “Raspberry Miramar” is the station at Miramar NAS, CA, and “Raspberry Jax” is Jacksonville, NASFL. You can find naval air communications in the 6.7, 8.7, 8.9, 11.2, 13.2 and 15.0 MHz frequency areas.”

CW (Fall-Winter 1976) pages 19-20

“The list of tactical calls is as long as your arm and most DXers find it very tough to connect a certain call with a particular service or military base. But here is a partial list of calls used by Air Force, Navy and a few Army operations. (Bergstrom AFB, TX), “Condor” (land mobile units), “Raymond 6” (George AFB, CA), “Raymond 24” (Little Rock AFB, 4LR). Pacific Missile Firing Range Network: “Plead Control” (Pt. Mugu, CA), “Outrider Control” (Barking Sands, HI). Strategic Air Command: “Skyking” (general call for airborne aircraft), “Outway” (Offutt AFB, NE), “Retail” (Barksdale AFB, LA), “Democrat” (March AFB, CA). Other Air Force “tacticals”: “Beaver Operations” (Ellsworth AFB, SD), “Letterman” (Hickam AFB, HI), “Hornpipe” (Cannon AFB, NM), Air Force Tactical Air Command: “Mainsail” (general call), “Fireside 1” (Langley AFB, VA), “Fireside 5” “Glucose” (Seymour -Johnson AFB, NC), “Lactose” (Shaw AFB, NC), “Fertile” (Homestead AFB, FL), “Acrobat” (Andrews AFB, MD), “Ringmaster” (NORAD Hq, Cheyenne Mt., CO), “Gull Monitor” (Keesler AFB, MS), “Format” (McGuire AFB, NJ). Navy Atlantic Command: “Ivanhoe” (Norfolk, VA), “Hampshire” (Ft. Allen, Puerto Rico), “Sheriff” (Bermuda) “Phenomenon” (Jacksonville, FL). Navy Pacific Command: “Butterfield” (San Diego, CA), “Dunkirk” (Honolulu) Other Navy “tacticals”: “Climax” (USS Enterprise), “Eagle Cliff” (USS .John F. Kennedy), “Jitterbug” (Balboa, Canal Zone), “Artesia” (Keflavik, Iceland) “Orange Juice” (Guam), “Missionary” (Norfolk, VA), “Top – hand” (Chief of Naval Operations), “T – Bone” (Adak, AK), “Sleepy Hollow” (Cutler, ME). Army “tacticals”: “Agitator” (Ft. Bliss, TX), “Civil Genius” (Ft. Huachuca AZ), “Popeye” (Ft. Bragg, NC), “Avon Studio” (Ohio National Guard), “Contact Tippic” (Indiana National Guard), “Flame Ivory” (Pennsylvania National Guard).”