Intent to Sole Source: Meteorburst Radio Equipment and Technical Support

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), intends to issue a firm-fixed price, sole source purchase order to Maiden Rock for maintenance and repair service for Meteor Burst radio equipment and technical support for remote radios and master station equipment. 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. Estimated value of services is $30.000. This procurement is being conducted under Simplified Acquisition Procedures in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Part 13.106-1(b)(1) (i), Soliciting from a single source. 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. Any responses or inquires to this notice shall be submitted to Danny Kelly, Contracting Officer at danny.kelly@ftw.usda.gov and are due no later than the 3:00pm (Central Standard Time) on September 02, 2014.