Tunnels wouldn't be such a great thing, as many of them have GPS transponders
built in so that you can continue tracking as you pass through the tunnel.

The administration has made it a major priority to bring broadband internet
to everyone's Crackberry.... It looks like they are going to do it regardless
of the consequences.

-Chuck Harris

Bob Camp wrote:

Hi

There's obviously major fuel behind this thing. I'm willing to pass up GPS
underground. It's GPS out in the open that is my main concern. IF they are
going to use this for "last mile" connect to homes it will indeed be
everywhere and anywhere. IF that's the case, you loose all sorts of GPS
stuff.

I'd hate to see my GPSDO collection wind up sitting next to the Loran C
stuff out in the shed.

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of Chuck Harris
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 12:23 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] latest on the lightsquared 'saga'

Tunnels wouldn't be such a great thing, as many of them have GPS
transponders
built in so that you can continue tracking as you pass through the tunnel.

The administration has made it a major priority to bring broadband internet
to everyone's Crackberry.... It looks like they are going to do it
regardless
of the consequences.

-Chuck Harris

Bob Camp wrote:

these

tunnels

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

Maybe we should alarm the environmentalists about the 60 MW load being added
to the power grid.

Tom Holmes, N8ZM
Tipp City, OH
EM79

these

tunnels

http://www.gpsworld.com/survey/surveying/lightsquared-saga-and-recent-solar-

https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts

"Who is Lightsquared ?"

http://www.lightsquared.com/about-us/management-team/

Executive Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Public Policy
Jeffrey J. Carlisle

FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau. At the FCC, he managed ....

And who is paying the bills ?

http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2011/03/01/will-fccs-political-favor-harbinger-hedge-fund-result-gps-interference

LightSquared is owned by the Harbinger Capital hedge fund, headed by
billionaire investor
Phil Falcone, in photo. Falcone visited the White House and made large
donations to the
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The part "The Loophole" is pretty classic

-pete Sigh ...

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:22 AM, Chuck Harris cfharris@erols.com wrote:

Forget ..

in the nlpc article

How Phil Falcone ensured a "suitably flexible FCC"

pretty much sums it up

1. visit white house
2. make maximum contributes (you, your wife and your boss) a couple days later
3. get the go ahead from the FCC

An just to ensure it is totally bipartisan, make sure you have made
the max contributions to the other parthy

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:34 AM, Bob Camp lists@rtty.us wrote:

On 3/3/11 9:34 AM, Bob Camp wrote:

My theory is that the reason that this can't work is complex enough
(yes, trivial for us time-nuts and GPS afficionados, but complex for
most others) so it looks like could work to a lot of people, and is
attractive, so the stock price would get bid up.

So, a wise person would do the following:
--->>> Wait for them to IPO
--->>> Watch the runup in stock price because it's the greatest thing
since sliced bread and will bring broadband to the unwashed masses,
resulting in world peace, etc.
--->>> short the stock or buy a default swap on them going under
Lightsquared "discovers" that there is an insurmountable regulatory hurdle
L2 says, "bummer, I guess we have to close up shop or redirect our efforts"
Stock price crashes

-->>> Cash in on the default swap or stock puts

or, a more benign one... you could keep quite a crew of folks busy
looking at all the ramifications and implications and doing studies for
half a dozen years, and then move onto something else after having
burned "other people's money" that was invested.

The other scenerio is buy stock in the leading GPS makers and assume that
they and Lightsquared will lobby effectively and everyone will be forced to
buy new GPS units...

There is precedent in that, the DTV converter box vouchers...

Jim Cotton
n8qoh

On 3/3/11 3:09 PM, jimlux wrote:

As it has been said, if the Federal government can force you to buy
health insurance, or pay a fine, it can force you to buy anything.

This is, however, getting a little too far afield for this group.

-Chuck Harris

Jim Cotton wrote:

Hi

Based on some very rough Google stuff, it looks like you can cover a good
chunk of the US with cell towers and only use 100,000 to 200,000 towers.
Since they are a 30 watt-ish sort of thing, their RF footprint is likely a
lot smaller than a 1.5 KW setup. Even if the power increase "only" doubles
the range, that's 4X the area. Their 40,000 sites now are very similar to
160,000 cell phone sites.

What are they doing with all those sites? Am I missing something obvious
here? I keep coming back to them having a high power terrestrial footprint
that looks at least as dense as a Verizon 2009 cell phone coverage map.

If that's correct, timing or navigating is going to be difficult for
everybody.

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of jimlux
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 3:09 PM
To: time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] latest on the lightsquared 'saga'

On 3/3/11 9:34 AM, Bob Camp wrote:

My theory is that the reason that this can't work is complex enough
(yes, trivial for us time-nuts and GPS afficionados, but complex for
most others) so it looks like could work to a lot of people, and is
attractive, so the stock price would get bid up.

So, a wise person would do the following:
--->>> Wait for them to IPO
--->>> Watch the runup in stock price because it's the greatest thing
since sliced bread and will bring broadband to the unwashed masses,
resulting in world peace, etc.
--->>> short the stock or buy a default swap on them going under
Lightsquared "discovers" that there is an insurmountable regulatory hurdle
L2 says, "bummer, I guess we have to close up shop or redirect our efforts"
Stock price crashes

-->>> Cash in on the default swap or stock puts

or, a more benign one... you could keep quite a crew of folks busy
looking at all the ramifications and implications and doing studies for
half a dozen years, and then move onto something else after having
burned "other people's money" that was invested.

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

The problem will probably resolve itself when the first idiot to lose
his GPS at a T junction drives into the deli across the street as he/she
was not told to take a turn. The driver will sue for denial of service
and 50 million other Americans will jump on board the class action.

Le 03/03/2011 21:22, Jim Cotton a écrit :

Robert wrote:

The FCC believes (and studies show) that mobile broadband is the Next
Big Thing (some studies predict that the US will need 35x more mobile
broadband spectrum before long).  So, most of the FCC's focus is on
serving mobile users, who cannot be served by fiber optics.  To that
end, the FCC is trying to add 500 MHz of spectrum that is useful for
mobile broadband over the next 10 years, 300 MHz of it within 5
years:  (http://www.broadband.gov/plan/).

Now, 500 MHz is nowhere near 35x what is now available, so even if
the FCC is fully successful it presumably will not meet the demand --
but nobody at the FCC or in Congress seems to have noticed
this.  Further, there is a limited amount of spectrum that is truly
useful for mobile broadband -- high enough that antennas for handheld
devices are manageable, but low enough to penetrate into buildings
and other dark zones -- so 500 MHz will be very, very hard to
find.  The plan appears to include "repacking" all over-the-air
television stations into the VHF TV spectrum, to free up the UHF TV
spectrum (ironically, immediately after converting the industry to a
DTV modulation scheme that has severe multipath problems at VHF, so
stations voluntarily packed themselves into the UHF spectrum during
the transition).

MSS spectrum in the L-band (and elsewhere) has historically not been
heavily utilized because of the cost of infrastructure and the
less-than-stellar performance.  The first step toward making this
spectrum more useful was to allow MSS licensees to construct an
"ancillary terrestrial component" -- cellular base stations on towers
-- to fill in holes.  The second step (Lightsquared and other MSS
licensees who will follow) is to waive some of the provisions that
make the terrestrial component "ancillary" (i.e., to allow much more
widespread terrestrial use).  The third step is to authorize purely
terrestrial services to operate in the MSS bands (the FCC has already
officially proposed adding such allotments, and everyone in the
communications industry expects it to adopt the
proposal):
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-126A1_Rcd.pdf

Bob asked where the 40k terrestrial base stations will go.  That
number is on par with Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T, so one might
expect the coverage to be similar (Sprint has about 46k sites for its
1.9 GHz network).

Best regards,

Charles

Hey, at least you got vouchers. Here in Cambridge UK the analogue signal goes off next weekend and you are on your own for converters.
 
Robert G8RPI.

--- On Thu, 3/3/11, Jim Cotton jim.cotton@wmich.edu wrote:

From: Jim Cotton jim.cotton@wmich.edu
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] latest on the lightsquared 'saga'
To: time-nuts@febo.com
Date: Thursday, 3 March, 2011, 20:22

The other scenerio is buy stock in the leading GPS makers and assume that
they and Lightsquared will lobby effectively and everyone will be forced to
buy new GPS units...

There is precedent in that, the DTV converter box vouchers...

Jim Cotton
n8qoh

On 3/3/11 3:09 PM, jimlux wrote:

time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.

Robert wrote:

If you had ever seen the video that comes out of the converters made
to the voucher price point, you might not be so keen on the
program.  Then again, many Brits seem to tolerate the horrid video
that Sky TV sends out....    ;-)

Best regards,

Charles

On 4 March 2011 23:26, Charles P. Steinmetz
charles_steinmetz@lavabit.com wrote:

But at least it's in PAL not Never Twice The Same Colour :)

Steve

--
Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

• Einstein

Hi

Indeed this is my fear. The authorization really has very little to do with filling in dark holes in the sat coverage and everything to do with setting up a full blown terrestrial system. This is not going to be a "far away and easily ignored" thing. If you have cell phone coverage, you will likely have this stuff as well. The level may or may not be enough to take your timing gear off the air. It will take it down for a number of us.

Bob

On Mar 3, 2011, at 5:38 PM, Charles P. Steinmetz wrote:

Bob wrote:

Correct.  LightSquared's business model is to be a wholesale network
provider.  The FCC waiver explicitly allows LS to provide terrestrial
network capacity only, to customers who do not care about satellite
connectivity (which could be most of them).  This is a preview of the
future, in which there will be other terrestrial licensees on the
spectrum that won't even need to have satellites in orbit.

However, if these terrestrial networks do interfere with GPS in any
significant way, the GPS interests will howl and something likely
will be done.  For that matter, LS will be relying on GPS timing
receivers mounted next to its base stations to make its LTE network
function.  So don't give up just yet.

Best regards,

Charles