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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!Howard.Gayle@cmu-cs-g.arpa
From: Howard.Gayle@cmu-cs-g.arpa
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar
Message-ID: <742@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Aug-84 07:30:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.742
Posted: Sat Aug  4 07:30:29 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 6-Aug-84 05:42:19 EDT
Lines: 23

I don't understand why Geostar users will, at least in principle,
pay so much less than Navstar users.  (Note that I am talking
here about direct costs to the user, like hardware and user fees.
I exclude indirect costs like the taxes that pay for the Navstar
satellites.)  A Geostar transceiver
consists of an antenna, a receiver, a processor, a display, and a
transmitter.  A Navstar receiver consists of the same functional units,
but without the transmitter section and its relatively expensive,
high peak power components.  A Navstar receiver contains a
much more complex processor, but this is just silicon, so once
mass production starts, i.e., once the custom VLSI design is
done, this should be negligible.  Geostar will charge a user fee,
but DOD has announced that there will be no user fee for Navstar.
A Navstar receiver will probably have a simpler antenna, since it
will not need to handle transmitter power.  A Geostar transceiver
will probably need an FCC radio station license.
Present military Navstar prototype receivers are, of course, very
expensive, but Aviation Week is already talking about pocket
size receivers.  I expect the Japanese to produce a pocket size
Navstar receiver for well under $1000 (1984 dollars).

I would like to read technical replies to this post, but please
no flames about DOD stupidity, Free Enterprise, etc.