As some of us know, a company called Lightsquared used political connections and campaign contributions to short circuit established FCC procedures to obtain a band of frequencies for the cell phone system they are developing. Thanks to their political manipulations they were able to avoid paying the billions for frequency spectrum that AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and others have to pay.
But there is a fly in the ointment. These frequencies are in bands reserved for satellite transmission. That is why Lightsquared got the allocation without bidding and paying billions for them. These frequencies are adjacent to the GPS frequencies used by untold millions of users. When Lightsquared transmits on these frequencies with powerful ground based transmitters, GPS receivers stop working for several miles. Now Lightsquared claims it is the responsibility of current GPS users to buy new devices so Lightsquared can leverage their frequency allocation. These new GPS receivers have yet to be designed. Some critical applications may never be able to avoid Lightsquared's signals. http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/1940-full.html#204873 -- Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX N2469R [email protected] www.omen.com Developer of Industrial ZMODEM(Tm) for Embedded Applications Omen Technology Inc "The High Reliability Software" 10255 NW Old Cornelius Pass Portland OR 97231 503-614-0430 _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
