Page 25 - PCCAJournal4thQuarter2011

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PCCA Journal|4
th
Quarter 2011
25
Immediate Action Requested:
Ask Congress to Help Save Our GPS
J
ohn Deere has alerted PCCA
about the need to communi-
cate with our representatives
in Washington, D.C., about
an issue that threatens to im-
pact construction contractors throughout
the U.S. The Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) has granted con-
ditional approval to a company called
LightSquared to build a terrestrial-based
broadband system. Early testing had
shown that this proposed broadband
system interfered with existing equip-
ment and would adversely impact many
John Deere customers and millions of
GPS users. In terms of construction
equipment customers, failure to protect
high-precision, augmented GPS services
could adversely impact the use of fleet
management technologies, including
JDLink and advanced grade control sys-
tems. John Deere anticipated that PCCA
members would want to get involved in
reaching out to Congress on this issue—
and that time is now.
LightSquared has proposed mitigation
techniques to remedy the interference to
GPS by operating terrestrial transmitters
in only the lower 10MHz of its spectrum.
The FCC has called for additional testing
because the lower band has not been
adequately tested. Concerns remain
that this could still interfere with GPS,
especially high-precision receivers and
devices used in national security, avia-
tion, agriculture, and construction.
John Deere fully agrees that more
testing should be done to ensure that
the proposed broadband network does
not impact users of high-precision GPS.
All indications are that the GPS signals
that farmers and construction contrac-
tors use every day would be disrupted.
Our means to help build shelter and
infrastructure, sustainably, for a growing
world population would be jeopardized
by LightSquared and its broadband spec-
trum.
John Deere’s position is this:
We need full, conclusive testing to
News Briefs continued on page 26
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