NOTICE OF INTENT The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), intends to issue a firm-fixed price, sole source contract to Maiden Rock for the design development and delivery of prototype units of Meteor Burst Remote Radios. This procurement is being conducted under Simplified Acquisition Procedures in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Part 6.302-1 (a) (2) (ii) (A), Only One Responsible Source and no other Supplies will Satisfy Agency Requirements. Currently the National Water and Climate Center (NWCC) collects data from multiple meteor burst master stations in order to obtain remote station data from SNOTEL and SCAN and is in need of additional work items for the existing SNOTEL system MRC520X. This work includes prototype PCA for FCC testing, test reports, and submittal for FCC acceptance. It also, includes upgrading the prototype PCA's to production PCA's, incorporating changes to PCA's resulting from factory settings and incorporating changes to all metal work drawings resulting from factory and field testing. Estimated value of services is $80,000. The SNOTEL system is the largest meteor burst remote data collection system in the world. Meteorburst transmitters are the primary source for transmitted SNOTEL and SCAN data used in essential engineering research and development projects with field applications throughout the USDA-NRCS. The 520X radio and all connecting power and communication cables transmit data collected from Soil Climate Analysis stations and SNOTEL stations across the United States. All remote station radios operate against this proprietary operating system and were manufactured by MCC who has transferred the rights to Maiden Rock. To compete this award would create substantial duplication of costs in which the Government is not expected to recover. This is not a request for Competitive Proposals. No contract will be awarded on the basis of offers received in response to this notice. A determination by the Government not to compete the proposed effort on a full and open competition basis, based upon the responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the Government. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. This is a notice and a solicitation will not be issued. NRCS will not respond to requests for solicitation copies and will not pay for information received in response to this announcement. No solicitation document is available. The associated North America Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code is 811213 and the Business Size Standard is 500 employees. The point of contact for this requirement is Willie Mae Johnson, Supervisory Contract Specialist, email
[email protected].