Skywave adaptable network transceiver apparatus and method using a

Abstract

In the skywave adaptable communication network, the time required to initiate communications between two transceivers can often be an important factor where the propagation characteristics of signals at various frequencies may vary drastically with time. The present invention not only improves upon known prior art by accepting the first frequency that it hears as a communication frequency when two nodes are attempting to communicate from a known list of probe and default frequencies to be transmitted at known times, it uses an 'announce and do' protocol to establish initial link-up and to change traffic frequencies or other system parameters once link-up has occurred to obtain coordination between both communicating nodes in a network of communicating nodes. The announce and do protocol requires multiple frequency announcements but the multi-frequency can be traffic frequency and a probe frequency or it can be multiple traffic frequencies whereby there is another communicating channel besides the channel which is involved in the changed system parameters. Once link-up has occurred, the probe signals are used to allow the system to then adaptively change the traffic frequencies to obtain better quality traffic signals, as these better quality probe signals are received, analyzed and compared with the quality of the present working frequency signals.