In
telecommunication, 'automatic sounding' is 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.
Automatic soundings are primarily intended to increase the efficiency of the
automatic link establishment (ALE) function, thereby increasing
system throughput.
Sounding information is used for identifying the specific
channel to be used for a particular ALE connectivity attempt.