Dear Friends and wireless professionals,

I have some interesting news for you this week, but first my regular disclaimer:

This is my weekly newsletter about Wireless Data and Radio Paging. You are receiving this message because you have either communicated with me in the past about a wireless topic, or your address was included in another e-mail that I received. This is not a SPAM. If you have received this message in error, and you are not interested in these topics, please click here, then click on "send" and you will be promptly removed from the mailing list.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested. Thanks for the good response to last week's newsletter.

WHO ARE YOUR HEROES?
Are your heroes baseball players, football players, Nobel Prize winners, rock stars, or maybe great authors? I don't know about you, but my heroes are the great leaders and pioneers of wireless communications. RCR Wireless News just announced four new inductees into the Wireless Hall of Fame.

• Jai Bhagat, chairman and CEO of Air2Lan, and former cochairman of Mtel.
• John Palmer, U.S. ambassador to Portugal, who was instrumental in building the nationwide paging industry with companies MCCA and Mtel Corp.
• John Stupka, CEO of Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems.
• Richard Wiley, former general counsel to the FCC, an FCC commissioner and then FCC chairman under three presidents.

Previous honors have gone to:

• Martin Cooper, chairman and CEO of ArrayComm Inc. During his tenure at Motorola Inc., Cooper invented the portable radio system that was incorporated into cellular.
• Robert Galvin, chairman and/or president of Motorola from 1956-1990.
• Dr. Irwin Jacobs, founder, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm Inc.
• Fred M. Link, founder of Link Radio Corp., Radio Club of America president, 1968-1992, and president emeritus until his death in 1998.
• Craig McCaw, founder of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc.
• William McGowen, founder of MCI Communications Corp. and chairman of the company until his death in 1992.
• Andrew J. Viterbi, vice chairman and former chief technical officer of Qualcomm.
• Edwin H. Armstrong, a pioneer in frequency modulation.
• Thomas Carter, who invented the Carterfone, a "phone patch" for radio communications that attached to AT&T's network.
• James Dwyer, most well-known for challenging the FCC in the 1970s to allow competition in the wireless communications industry rather than giving all of the spectrum to incumbent monopolies.
• Morgan O'Brien, who founded what is now called Nextel Communications Inc.

There are very interesting biographies of these gentlemen in the RCR Wireless Hall of Fame web site.

DATAPAGE SALE
There were some surprising responses to the offer to sell DATAPAGE, the paging carrier in Vermont. Several have said that the offer is too good to be true, and others are studying the books to see if it is a good business investment. I can understand both views but I would like to point out a couple of things. First of all, a paging company with FCC licenses to cover the 45 counties in the Boston MEA (FCC territories are divided up into Major Economic Areas) and 24 -- soon to be 26 -- operational sites probably cost over ten times the sale price of $195,000. So at this price is a bargain just for the assets. Then, unless you believe that paging is totally dead, which I don't, there is an opportunity here to build a good regional paging business. Coverage could be expanded to cover the metropolitan Boston area, and several new services could be offered. As far as being too good to be true and the possibility of there being something hidden, so far, all I can determine is that the company has just become a victim of too much debt during this time of economic difficulty that most business are experiencing. The company's owners will retire the existing bank debt of approximately $1.3 million, and they say that they have over 4,600 paying subscribers. I think it would be a good deal as an investment if they didn't have any subscribers. There are some past-due bills that would have to be assumed or re-negotiated, but this is not a big number. Anyone buying a business like this would naturally verify everything before closing and would cover their tail with a good contract. It is interesting to read the Motorola press release about the initial launch of DATAPAGE (when it first started). I first offered this company for sale on May 3rd, and warned everyone that the offer was only good for two weeks. Well, the two weeks have passed and it looks like DATAPAGE may go into receivership in about one more week. If anyone wants to meet me in Vermont next week with checkbook in hand, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

MORE WANTED TO BUY AND SELL
Following is an interesting message that I received from Jerry Griffith who runs an MSS in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has some products that may be of use to some of you readers, and he is looking to buy some equipment too.

Brad, thanks for the newsletter!

We are an independent, very large Motorola MSS/Paging carrier/Dealer/Warranty station in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Background: I installed and serviced a 6 channel BBL System III with VRS back in the 80's and have purchased, programmed and installed 8 Unipage M15/M30/Message Manager series terminals for our local customers (hospitals and public safety).

The Unipage machines are uncannily reliable if you can keep the channel processor away from lightning strikes (we now over-protect the wireline with very low-level surge devices).

We also build backup, plug-in-compatable power supplies for the 120 vac Unipage M15's, as these are no longer available, and the British-made switching supplies shipped with the newer systems are of questionable quality.  We also build replacement power supplies for the Motorola Advanced Simulcast Controller (ASC1500) (which is the same power supply as a Motorola "PageBridge" paging terminal, which also uses the failure-prone British switcher ("Weir")).  OK, done with the self-promotion, although you may forward this on to any folks who might need a new power supply for their system.

We are currently looking to purchase a used 125 watt Nucleus VHF range 2 (158 MHz-capable) with NAC 4.x wireline control. Have $3000 + shipping  to purchase 1 immediately. Also am looking for 4 Nucleus internal link rcvrs in the 950 MHz band  (not the 940 band), have $600.00 each to purchase immediately. Let me know if you have any! (Chris Kephart of MCK is currently out of these items -  he supplied us with 3 used Nuc's last year, sans link rcvrs - I recommend him highly).

Jerry Griffith
jgriffith@mobilcomm.com
Mobilcomm, Inc
1211 W. Sharon Rd.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45240
513-742-5555

If I may be of assistance as a consultant—full-time or part-time—please read this and then get in touch with me.