Fred Kornberg
Analyst · Sidoti & Company
Thanks, Mike. I will now -- I'd like to now discuss some of the new developments in each of our 3 business segments, which should also some -- add some color as to why we are very excited about fiscal 2014. The largest segment is the Telecommunications Transmission segment. Within this segment, the majority of our revenues have been and are expected to be from our Satellite Earth Station product line. Our strong leadership position and market share in the Satellite Earth Station is driven by our proven ability to deliver the most bandwidth-efficient modems to our end customers. These customers want their networks to be as efficient as possible in order to save on operating costs, both on the ground and in the space segment, by allowing them to send more voice, more video and more data through the same satellite channel. As you know, we have a long track record of being the innovation leader in this space. For example, more than 10 years ago, we introduced the first satellite modem using our patented TPC Forward Error Correction. Approximately, 3 years ago, we introduced our patented Carrier-in-Carrier technology, which allows our modems to use the same bandwidth over both the transmit and receive satellite channels simultaneously, thereby essentially doubling bandwidth efficiency. Unfortunately, the introduction of this groundbreaking technology coincided with the onset of the economic downturn and therefore, muted the potential sales that we believe could have been realized in a more favorable economic environment. Accordingly, we believe this technology has a long way to go. And although this technology has been in the marketplace for a few years, we believe there may be a pent-up demand, which will benefit us as the economy rebounds and government spending goes back to normal. Just last year, we also introduced a new line of product called advanced VSAT. These products combine a variety of technologies within our IP portfolio, including advanced Forward Error Correction, advanced coding modulation, header and lossless payload compression, RAN and WAN optimization and a managed bandwidth technology to provide an overall integrated solution. By listening closely to our end customers, we have been able to offer our advanced VSAT solutions into a market that has traditionally been served primarily by TDMA solutions. The good news is that, recently, we have seen certain TDMA users moved away from that technology since many users are demanding more dedicated, wider and more reliable bandwidth and are unwilling to tolerate the latency issues associated with TDMA. The contract we received from Harris Corporation last year to replace the Royal Caribbean Cruise line's TDMA systems with our advanced VSAT products is a good example of this. We believe other industry users may also follow in this direction, when they realize the limitations of TDMA and the advantages of using our advanced VSAT products. As you know, on the commercial side, most of our commercial Satellite Earth Station product sales are outside of the United States, and many international markets have continued to be impacted by economic conditions and in some cases, political and civil unrest. Europe, in particular, has been impacted by weak economic [ph] conditions. In addition to the impact that the European recession has had on European projects, it has also impacted large projects in Africa and South America, where much of the funding comes from the European telecom companies. On the U.S. government side of the Earth Station product line, procurement of our products practically came to a dead stop in the middle of fiscal 2013. A return to normalcy in the U.S. government communications equipment procurement process should also serve as an additional catalyst for growth in 2014 and beyond. Despite the overall downward pressure on government spending in fiscal 2013, we did receive a very significant contract from the U.S. Navy with a potential value of $29 million. We will be developing and then manufacturing the Advanced Time Division Multiple Access Interface Processor or ATIP for the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. This contract is very strategically important to us as it enters us into the protected MILSATCOM market. So in the Satellite Earth Station, area we believe we have pretty well weathered economic, political, regulatory and market-specific headwinds for the past few years. We have adjusted our operating expense levels accordingly while continuing to invest heavily in R&D. As a result, we believe that we are nicely positioned to capitalize on market opportunities if and when conditions improve. The other product line in the Telecommunications Transmission segment is our over-the-horizon microwave or troposcatter product line. We expect fiscal 2014 to be a strong year for our tropo business. Anchored by very strong backlog, we see a marked increase in revenues over fiscal 2013. To date, we have received contracts related to our North African end customer in excess of $340 million over the past [indiscernible]. There are additional large opportunities with this end customer that we believe will materialize in the years ahead. We hope to duplicate this type of relationship with other countries in the next few years as well. As our technology has advanced so has the number of potential users for tropo. In recent years, we have strengthened our marketing presence in many new international markets. We have begun to see these efforts pay off as evidenced by contracts that we have received in the Middle East and Sweden. We're also addressing and, in some cases, have already bid on large multimillion-dollar opportunities in Asia, South America, Middle East and Africa. These opportunities, as we all know, do take some time. On the U.S. government side of the tropo area, bookings of our SNAP terminals were strong and growing in fiscal 2012 but turned very soft in fiscal 2013. We now expect to receive tropo orders for additional SNAP terminals during fiscal 2014, with the related revenue most likely moving into fiscal 2015. We also believe that the U.S. Military spending for our transit case tropo will expand significantly in the coming years, as it is the only tropo system that has been qualified by all U.S. Military services, is backward-compatible with the current U.S. Military 170 -- TRC-170 tropo terminals, the price of these systems is significantly less than refurbishing and maintaining the equipment currently in service and their high mobility aligns with the new U.S. Military communications doctrine. On the commercial front, we continue to receive orders from industry-leading oil companies for tropo systems that are used on their drilling and exploration platforms. To repeat, our optimism about fiscal 2014 is based on the unprecedented amount of backlog we have, the number of quality international proposals that we have in the pipeline and our U.S. government business having nowhere to go but up given the virtual paralysis we experienced in fiscal 2013. All in all, we see 2014 as the year that our telecommunications segment will return to growth. Turning to our RF Microwave Amplifier segment. Fiscal 2013 was a challenging year. Difficult global market conditions and U.S. government procurement paralysis resulted in various order delays. However, we did receive certain important orders in the latter half of the year, with a large amount -- majority of these orders which will ship in fiscal 2014. In our traveling wave tube amplifier business or TWTA product line, we see delays on certain large military programs, such as FAB-T and WIN-T finally being resolved in the coming months. Both of these programs are expected to provide us with a nice revenue stream over the next few years. We also expect to continue significant business from the family of terminals program or FOT, which includes a mix of our TWTAs and SSPAs. On the commercial side of the TWTA product line, we see broadband high throughput satellite market and the direct-to-home satellite TV market as very exciting growth opportunities. We have sold our products into the most -- into most of the large North American and European broadband Ka-band platforms and are bidding, not only on the next-generation platforms with the same customers, as well as on new opportunities with new customers in new geographies. The direct-to-home or DTH market is poised for dramatic growth in the next few years as broadcasters are looking to replace aged, bandwidth-efficient klystron amplifiers in their existing networks with high-power, more efficient and more cost-effective broadband TWTAs to support high-definition and ultrahigh-definition program offerings. On the solid-state power amplifier side, our SSPA product line, our business has also been dramatically impacted by the weak U.S. government spending environment. In fact, in fiscal 2013, bookings relating to our IED-jamming products, which have been the largest single end use for our products in recent years were virtually 0. When and if this area, most notably the CREW 3.3 program, which we are on, will get back on track is not known at this time. Although a smaller part of our SSA -- SSPA business, our domestic commercial product lines serving the aviation and medical communities have continued to do well. Overall, bookings in our SSPA product lines did improve in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, and much of our projected sales for fiscal 2014 are already in backlog. In our third segment, Mobile Data Communications, our largest revenue contributor remains the sustainment work we're performing for the U.S. Army under the BFT-1 MTS contract. These activities continue to be funded despite the intense government spending pressures, which is continuing evidence of the important role our fielded technology plays with the -- within the U.S. Army. We are providing these sustainment services pursuant to a 2-year contract, which expires on March 31, 2014. And as you recall, under this contract, we receive a $10 million annual fee for the Army's ongoing use of our intellectual property, as well as just north of $10 million of engineering and support services, which are billed on a cost-plus basis. We expect to receive a new contract in our third quarter that will extend our sustainment activities. We're also continuing to pursue certain other specific markets for our services [ph], mostly assigned -- aligned with our existing product offerings. But we do not expect related revenues to be of significance in fiscal 2014. Most likely, they will be into -- going into fiscal 2015. Our primary goal in the mobile data communications market segment continues to be to provide the U.S. Army with outstanding support and in doing so participate [ph] in any next-generation BFT platform, if and when the U.S. Army pursues that path. Finally before turning it over to the operator, I would like to thank our employees and shareholders for hanging through a tough year. We believe better times lie ahead. With that, I would like to proceed to the question-and-answer period of our conference. Operator?