WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1996 AUG 27 (NB) -- By Bill Pietrucha. All eyes were on the truck as it meandered its way down the twisting mountain road in northern Bosnia. Except the eyes didn't belong to lookouts in an observation post along the road. They were in a modified US Air Force (USAF) C-135 flying at 35,000 feet along the East Coast of the United States, some 6,000 miles away. The USAF C-135, known by the name Speckled Trout, was participating in the 1996 Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID `96). JWID `96 is the eighth in a series of technology demonstrations designed to identify command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence (C4I) problems between the armed services, demonstrate improved operational capabilities for deployed forces, and promote interoperability among existing and emerging C4I systems needed to support a joint task force. As part of the exercise, the Air Force installed the first full-scale prototype Ku-band phased array receive antenna system on the Speckled Trout, a modified avionics testbed aircraft maintained by the 412th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The antenna, developed by Boeing Co., is capable of receiving broad- band, high data rate satellite communications, with civilian as well as military applications, Boeing spokesperson Charles Ramey told Newsbytes. According to Ramey, the antenna will "revolutionize mobile satellite communications by increasing the data flow by thousands of times over current capabilities." Depending on the satellite and receiver, he said, rates of up to 30 megabits-per-second (Mbps) may be realized through a single transponder. "To date, satellite communication to mobile platforms has been limited to relatively narrow bandwidths, and wide band communication has been subject to the limits of antenna technology," Ramey told Newsbytes. The Boeing design can be adapted to simultaneously receive signals from multiple satellites in different orbits with a single antenna. The electronically steered antenna also allows for rapid switching between different satellites. During the JWID exercises, which will continue through August 30, the Boeing antenna system is being used to receive satellite transmitted video and data to support the Global Broadcast Service (GBS) mission. GBS, Ramey said, is designed to provide the military with a worldwide, seamless, high-throughput broadcast information service to support current and future defense objectives. As one Air Force Colonel at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, told Newsbytes, "GBS is the CNN of the warfighter." EchoStar, a key member of the antenna demonstration team, transmitted video in Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) format for reception by the Boeing antenna system on the Speckled Trout. In addition to the video, an uplink data stream at T1, or 1.5Mbps, or higher is generated at the GBS uplink terminal testbed at the Operational Support Office facility located at the Naval research Facility near Washington DC. This signal, according to Ramey, is relayed through the GBS Americom K2 FSS satellite which downlinks to a receiver at an EchoStar facility. The data is then incorporated into the network broadcast system and retransmitted via the EchoStar 1 satellite to a GBS receiver. The data is then stored for retrieval by other systems, Ramey said, including the Global Command and Control System (GCCS), sponsored by the Air Force Communications Agency, and the Combat Information System, sponsored by the Air Intelligence Agency. "Other systems on board the Speckled Trout can retrieve data through the Boeing phased array antenna system, which is routed to terminals inside the aircraft for display and demonstration," Ramey said. The Speckled Trout also can track and receive video and data from EchoStar Dish Network TV, Hughes DirectTV, and USSB transmissions for display on a conventional monitor, Ramey said. Looking to commercial applications, Ramey said the phased array communication antenna system "offers the ability to provide passengers with more entertainment and information options. With the Boeing antenna system on board, passengers can have access to the entire spectrum of commercial television programming available from a BSS satellite." Ramey said the antenna system is capable of instantaneously bringing in approximately 100 channels from a given BSS satellite. (199670826/Press Contact: Charles Ramey, Boeing Defense & Space group, 206-657-1380)