The present disclosure relates generally to a system and method for asynchronous busy-tone multiple access with acknowledgement for ad hoc wireless networks. In one example, the method includes emitting a tone after determining that a transmission is incoming from a sending node. An initial portion of a packet comprising the transmission is received while emitting the tone, where the initial portion contains a destination address of the packet. The emitting of the tone is stopped if the received destination address does not match an address of the receiving node. A remaining portion of the packet is received while continuing to emit the tone if the received destination address matches the address of the receiving node.