GPS World, September 2010
four PN transmitters and an aircraft with the receiver and a bottom antenna flew over them The aircrafts position was determined using the PN range measurements and the known locations of the transmitters The data from that receiver called the MX450 was used to help justify the Department of Defense DoD decision to proceed into the Advanced Development Phase of GPS Some of the people who contributed to this were named in Dr Brad Parkinsons recent articles on the origins of GPS During that time I was working on the next generation of spread spectrum modems for the DSCS Magnavox went on to develop these PN satcom modems for all three services and thus was a natural choice to develop the first military GPS receivers known as X and Y sets and the first Manpack as well as the first C A receiver the Z set and the very first spaceborne receiver called GPSPAC As soon as we completed the first Manpack I approached Col Paul Weber the Joint Program Office Army Deputy Program Manger and asked if he would pose with the Manpack on his back for a brochure we wanted to produce to show to potential Army and Marine Corps users He agreed dressed in his combat uniform and went with our photographer into the wild woods of San Pedro near the Port of Los Angeles for the picture shown in the brochure Magnavox also developed the military GPS Engineering Models in competition with Rockwell Collins Magnavox lost the production contract to Rockwell Collins a year after I left to join IEC now known as L 3 Communications Magnavox also pioneered commercial GPS sets for use in the marine and survey Space Warfighter DEFENSE markets Today you will still find many of the original GPS user equipment developers still at it as consultants and engineers at Raytheon Navcom Trimble IEC and others Perhaps our most famous alumni is Dr Min Kao the min of Garmin LEN JACOBSON is a consultant to the GPS industry and has served as an expert witness in many legal proceedings involving GPS He is the author of the book GNSS Markets and Applications published in 2007 and is a longstanding member of this magazines Editorial Advisory Board www gpsworld com September 2010 GPS World 45
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