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FRIDAY MAY 17, 2002 |
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.
WIRELESS NEWS |
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.
Previous honors have gone to:
There are very interesting biographies of these gentlemen in the RCR Wireless Hall of Fame web site.
WANT TO BUY WANT TO SELL |
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
WANT TO BUY | WANT TO SELL |
Motorola Golay Numeric-Display KeyNote pagers, any band. | New Datalink 2 plus POCSAG units J39DNW0050, all in factory bulk pack boxes, with one set of programing software. No cables. $75.00 each if you take all 292 units. |
125 watt Nucleus VHF range 2 (158 MHz-capable) with NAC 4.x wireline control (see e-mail above) | ALPHAMATES |
4 Nucleus internal link rcvrs in the 950 MHz band (not the 940 band) (see e-mail above) | WORDSENDERS |
If I may be of assistance as a consultantfull-time or part-timeplease read this and then get in touch with me.
UNTIL NEXT WEEK | |
PAGING |
Best regards to all, and have a great weekend, Brad Dye Wireless Data Consultant
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