Both aircraft received voice notification of the approximate location of each other, however the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the crash was the failure of the 727 to maintain visual separation with other air traffic.

One of those killed in the crash is a friend of Dr. Gerard ("Jerry") O'Neill.

In September, Dr. O'Neill files a patent for a "Satellite-Based Vehicle Position Determining System." Called Triad, it is based on the use of three satellites to provide coverage to North America. It is eventually granted U.S. Patent 4,359,733 in 1982.

Application is made to the FCC in April for a license to construct the Global Satellite System (GSS). The system called for three geosynchronous satellites, located at 70° W, 100° W, and 130° to cover the continental United States and adjoining waters. The application indicated GSS would be able to locate an individual $200 transceiver as well as carry short (36-character) messages.

Dr. O'Neill is interviewed for OMNI magazine.

The following What's News appeared in the September issue of Radio-Electronics magazine:

Satellite services for individuals?

Geostar Corp of Princeton, NJ, proposes a satellite-communications system that would permit persons to send messages via satellite, using devices no bigger than pocket pagers. The system will locate the exact position of the sender, and handle messages of up to 36 characters.

In its application to the FCC, Geostar states that a person confronted by a mugger could press a single button on his communicator. That would send out a signal that would go to three satellites in geostationary orbit over the Equator, and from them back to a computer on Earth. The computer would determine instantly the exact location of the sender by noting the difference in the time it takes for signals to reach the computer from the different satellites. It would then notify the nearest police car or station.

The system would also be valuable to hunters and others lost in the woods, and would be of great value to trucking companies, who would make large savings if they could determine the location of - and communicate with - their trucks at all times.

The proposal has not found favor in all quarters. The cellular radio services - some of whose alloted frequencies Geostar proposes to use - are particularly unhappy. AT&T and Motorola Inc., both of whom are heavily involved in cellular radio, have opposed plans of Geostar's type, stating that such systems would waste frequencies in serving remote areas; such frequencies could be used better in urban areas.

An article appeared in the December issue of Data Communications magazine with the following abstract:

A new satellite data network using low speed analog cellular technology will allow users with hand-held transceivers to send and receive text or data from any location without ground-based connections. Aimed at tracking commercial airlines, this network will also be used in business for tracking a local auto or truck fleet. Message transceivers will cost $450. The monthly service charge will be $10 - $30 per month. The project has been developed by Dr. Gerard O'Neill, former physics professor at Princeton who now heads the Geostar Corp. Nearly $2 million have been spent in development; $200 million will be needed for the satellites.

In August the FCC officially completed the rule-making process for the RDSS frequencies. They grant three licenses -- one to Geostar, one to MCCA Radiodetermination Corporation, and one to McCaw Space Technologies, Inc.

Eight transportation companies trial more than 100 user terminals, including Mayflower Transit.

Geostar moves their corporate headquarters and processing center from Princeton, New Jersey to K Street in downtown Washington, D.C.

Geostar begins commercial operation using Spacenet-3, with the capability of serving upwards of 40,000 users. (This was known internally as System 2.)

Users transmit a direct-sequence spread spectrum burst at 1618.25 MHz. The burst has an 8 MHz chip rate and a 15.6 kHz data rate. User terminals transmit their position, derived from an on-board LORAN-C receiver, to Geostar Central for delivery to the customer.

A return link at 2491.75 MHz is in the planning stages, but for now the Geostar service is one-way only.

Geostar acquires an 11.5 percent stake in Locstar, a consortium made up of European companies and government entities including British Aerospace and Alcatel. The consortium plans to provide RDSS in Europe, the Mideast and North Africa.

European patent EP 0174540 is granted to Geostar Corporation.

In November, San Diego-based Qualcomm, Inc. begins offering their two-way OmniTRACS mobile communications service via Ku-band satellite (two transponders on-board GSTAR-1). Qualcomm had purchased a smaller company called Omninet that had developed the system. The FCC granted Qualcomm an STA (Special Temporary Authority) in September for 2,000 terminals.

In October Geostar begins offering two-way service by transmitting an "outbound" signal (from the central hub out to mobile terminals) between 3700 and 4200 MHz (C-band). (This was known internally as System 2C.) Although the C-band frequencies were originally allocated for Fixed Satellite Service (FSS), the FCC allowed mobile operation in the band due to a lack of S-band satellite capacity in the allocated RDSS band (2483.5 to 2500 MHz).

Equipment is built by Hughes Network Systems (L-band transmitter), Kenwood Corporation (C-band receiver) and Sony Corporation (L-band transmitter).

A secure, handheld satellite transmitter prototype built by a division of Motorola (now part of General Dynamics) is demonstrated.

This authorization was set to expire when the first "Big LEO" began to operate, since the spectrum in question had been reallocated to the Mobile Satellite Service (MSS).

Comsat was a Geostar creditor and had acquired much of Geostar's equipment from the bankruptcy court. This included the RDSS hub and computers as well as an inventory of Hughes-built mobile L-band transmitters and Kenwood-built C-band mobile receivers.

This effectively reinstituted Geostar's service.

As with the Newcomb license, this authorization was also set to expire when the first "Big LEO" began to operate. Motorola's Iridium satellite network was the primary concern.

The system was publicly described as follows:

Inbound

• The transmitter fires a direct sequence spread spectrum signal at 1.6 GHz (L Band) lasting no longer than 80 milliseconds.
• This signal is received by a geostationary satellite with L band capability (Spacenet 3R) and transponded to the ground station at Ku band.
• The signal is acquired and decoded at the ground station by one of two hub units. The decoded packet is then delivered to a pair of Hewlett-Packard 9000 series computers (known internally as "Ren" and "Stimpy") for further processing and delivery to the customer.

Outbound

• A packet destined for a mobile unit is uplinked to a geostationary C band satellite (Comstar D4). The mobile receiver is locked to the C band carrier and demodulates incoming packets in a manner similar to the inbound path.

Features and Benefits

• Transmissions have superior LPI/D (Low Probability of Interception/Detection) characteristics, making them an excellent choice for clandestine messaging in a hostile environment.
• Inbound and Outbound channels are available to all units as all times, allowing for instantaneous two-way messaging.

Mobile Datacom begins work on a vehicle tracking and messaging system for the United States Army. This effort will become the Movement Tracking System, a $419 million contract awarded to the company in 1999. Preliminary equipment and software is tested at Fort Hood, Texas and demonstrated at the US Army's National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California, achieving some of the highest asset utilization scores ever recorded.

Also in September, Mobile Datacom completes an Advanced Concepts and Technology (ACT) II Program for the US Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) after a final convoy demonstration from Fort Stewart, Georgia to the Port of Savannah.

The ACT II demonstration integrates a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) interrogator, a SAE J1708/J1587 Vehicle Data Bus interface and a ruggedized laptop computer with a GPS-equipped satellite transceiver in a mobile military platform. The computer provides a moving map display and a two-way text messaging capability in a software program called MTS Messenger. Data transmitted from each platform is collected at a satellite Earth Station in Ellicott City, Maryland and made available on a series of web pages. Position and status information collected from each vehicle, processed in a software application called BField (short for battlefield), is broadcast back out over satellite to all vehicles.

Associated with the development of its next generation system are two major enhancements to the Mobile Datacom Network:

1. Multi-platform operation
2. Virtual Private Network Services

Through funding provided by a recently awarded contract from the U.S. Government's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), as supplemented by investor funding, Mobile Datacom will develop its next generation system to be multi-platform capable. This will make Mobile Datacom the only service provider in the business able to offer customers the choice of which satellite system to use with the same hardware/software combination. This will be accomplished by designing the MDC spacelink and physical protocol layers to accommodate other satellite relays as they become available while leaving external interfaces to the mobile terminal and the satellite gateway the same. Systems through which the Mobile Datacom Network will be able to operate include American Mobile Satellite Corporation (AMSC) (available today), TMI of Canada (available today), Globalstar, Odyssey, and other systems in which the satellite functions as a bent pipe relay, permitting the transmitted signal to pass through the satellite without any processing.

Since many customers and VARs want their own private networks, the Company will provide a wide range of virtual private network services. The Company's network architecture allows it to offer customers their own piece of the system, to manage as they choose.