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DIGITAL ANGEL RECEIVES NOTICE THAT IT HAS BEEN SELECTED FOR
AWARD OF A U.S. AIR FORCE FUNDED DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT
One of Only Two Companies Developing New Survival Radio
for Air Crew SO. ST. PAUL, MN (August 3, 2006) … Digital
Angel Corporation (Amex: DOC), an advanced technology company in the field
of rapid and accurate identification, location tracking, and condition
monitoring of high-value assets, announced today that it has received
notice that it has been selected for award of a contract by the U.S. Air
Force (USAF) to develop a new survival radio for military aircraft. The
Company is expecting final contract documents to be processed in the near
future. Digital Angel is one of only two companies to win a contract to
develop a new radio to replace the URT33, which is carried in aircrew
survival packs and sets off a distress signal in an emergency. The URT33
will become obsolete when existing frequencies on 121.5 and 243 MHz cease
to be monitored by Cospas-Sarsat on February 1, 2009.
The USAF
funded development contract calls for Digital Angel to design, develop and
build 20 operational radios within eight months. Following successful
trials of the new radio systems, the USAF operational replacement program
is expected to seek bids on a contract for about 15,000
radios.
Digital Angel President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin
N. McGrath congratulated his team of engineers from the Company’s
OuterLink and Signature Industries subsidiaries for winning the contract.
Lowell, MA-based OuterLink, which specializes in GPS location and
real-time satellite communication systems for helicopters and aircraft,
and London-based Signature Industries, which provides survival radios to
more than 40 countries worldwide under the SARBE® trade name, will combine
to develop the replacement radio.
“This is an enormously important
contract for us,” McGrath said. “Despite the fact that we are one of the
premier providers of military search and rescue beacons in the world, this
is the first time we have penetrated the U.S. military market, the largest
search and rescue beacon segment globally. This frequency change offers us
a long anticipated opportunity to penetrate a market with new products
made specifically to work with the new system. Once we finish the trial
radios our plan is to aggressively pursue the full scale manufacturing
contract as well as others from the U.S. armed forces.”
About
Cospas-Sarsat/URT33
The URT33 will be rendered obsolete when
the Cospas-Sarsat satellite rescue system is changed to monitor only
406MHz radio frequency in 2009. Cospas-Sarsat is the international
satellite system operator that detects activated search and rescue beacons
and approves all rescue beacon systems.
About Signature
Industries
SARBE is a major supplier of Search and Rescue (SAR)
military air crew Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs) and other military
rescue beacons for use in the event of an ejection or other event
requiring emergency evacuation of an aircraft in a remote, possibly
hostile location. Now in its fifth decade of developing and manufacturing
PLBs, SARBE is the chosen supplier of PLBs in more than 40 countries
worldwide. Signature Industries is majority owned by Digital Angel
Corporation. For more information about Signature Industries, visit http://www.signatureindustries.com/.
About
OuterLink
Based in Lowell, MA, OuterLink, a Digital Angel
subsidiary, provides satellite-based mobile asset tracking and data
messaging systems. Used to manage the deployment of aircraft and land
vehicles, these systems provide real-time location reporting, secure
bi-directional data communication and comprehensive asset management
software. They enable ground personnel to track the minute-by-minute
movement of mobile assets, monitor on-board sensors and conduct
bi-directional messaging with aircraft pilots and ground vehicle
operators. For more information, visit http://www.outerlink.com/.
About Digital
Angel Corporation
Digital Angel Corporation develops and
deploys sensor and communications technologies that enable rapid and
accurate identification, location tracking, and condition monitoring of
high-value assets. Applications for the Company’s products include
identification and monitoring of humans, pets, fish, poultry and livestock
through its patented implantable microchips; location tracking and message
monitoring of vehicles and aircraft in remote locations through systems
that integrate GPS and geosynchronous satellite communications; and
monitoring of asset conditions such as temperature and movement, through
advanced miniature sensors.
Digital Angel Corporation is
majority-owned by Applied Digital Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSX). For more information
about Digital Angel, please visit http://www.digitalangelcorp.com/.
The statements in this press release that are not strictly
historical, are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section
27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934 and are intended to be covered by the safe harbors
created by these sections. The forward-looking statements are subject to
risks and uncertainties and the actual results that the Company achieves
may differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to such
risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, that Applied
Digital Inc. owns 55.4% of the Company’s common stock, that new accounting
pronouncements regarding expensing of share based compensation may impact
the Company’s future results of operations, the Company may continue to
incur net losses, infringement by third parties on the Company’s
intellectual property or development of substantially equivalent
proprietary technology by the Company’s competitors could negatively
impact the Company’s business, domestic and foreign government regulation
and other factors could impair the Company’s ability to develop and sell
its products in certain markets, the Company relies on sales to government
contractors for its animal identification and search and rescue beacon
products, and any decline in the demand by these customers for such
products could negatively affect the Company’s business, the Company
depends on a single production arrangement for its patented
syringe-injectable microchips, and the loss of or any significant
reduction in the production could have an adverse effect on the Company’s
business, technological change could cause the Company’s products to
become obsolete, the loss of one of the Company’s principal customers
could negatively impact the Company’s net revenue, the Company’s earnings
will decline if the Company writes off goodwill and other intangible
assets, options and warrants outstanding and available for issuance may
adversely affect the market price of the Company’s common stock, currency
exchange rate fluctuations could have an adverse effect on the Company’s
sales and financial results, the Company depends on a small team of senior
management. A detailed statement of risks and uncertainties is contained
in the Company’s reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission,
including in particular the Company’s Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended
December 31, 2005. Investors and stockholders are urged to read this
document carefully. The Company can offer no assurances that any
projections, assumptions or forecasts made or discussed in this release
will be met, and investors should understand the risks of investing solely
due to such projections. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise
any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances
that may arise after the date of this press release.
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