For my friends who monitor the widebands, the analog is going away and the system will be going digital. According to the information below by about 2011 we will go dark.
Rockwell Collins Inc., Richardson, Texas, is being awarded a $10,281,275 fixed firm price contract for approximately 37,250 man-hours of non-recurring engineering, installation, and testing in support of Phase four of the Internet Protocol and Bandwidth Expansion (IPBE) for the E-6B Take Charge and Move Out (TACAMO) aircraft. In addition, a total of three options with a total value of $7,678,423 are being exercised at time of award that includes an additional 40,900 man-hours of non-recurring engineering, installation, and testing. The purpose of the IPBE Phase 4 is
to install the Digital Northstar System on the E-6B aircraft to provide the aircraft with the necessary interoperability and the proper configuration to communicate with DNS ground sites. Work will be performed in Richardson, Texas, (69 percent); Cedar Rapids, Iowa, (18 percent); and Phoenix, Ariz., (13 percent), and is expected to be completed in Mar. 2011.
I hope to have more on this story in the June issue of Monitoring Times and my monthly Milcom column.
