The purpose of this amendment is to answer questions from potential offerors. Question 1: "Will the unit be operated with depth below the sensor considered shallow water (100 or less below the sensor or thereabouts), or is this intended to be used to collect data in a deep regime as well?" ANSWER: The 3000 meter depth rating is the maximum operating depth of the Deep Towed Vehicle. The system will be integrated into the deep towed vehicle. The "operating regime" of the system will perform to the limits of a 200Khz system. Question 2: "Spec 1.d. is misleading. Is this meant to be PRF which is duplicated in spec 1.e. or is this a reference to towed body altitude measurement?" ANSWER: Spec 1.d. requires that the received signal be sampled as a function of range (in this case this also means time) at a required rate of at least 10 kHz. Question 3: "1.e. asks for a max ping rate of 10 pps. Why would the ping rate be limited to 10 pps?" ANSWER: The sonar shall be capable of pinging at least 10 times per second. Question 4: (a) "Is there a specific reason for requiring 111 beams in 1.f.?" (b) "You are requiring adjustable sectors and a 2.0x1.5 beam width, so what relevancy does the number of beams have?" (c) "Would 130 be satisfactory given all other parameters are met?" ANSWER: (a) The focus of this spec is on the number of beams or bathymetric data points per 120 degree sector when the sonar is operating in variable swath width mode (depth below sonar, number of beams control the width of the bathymetric swath). (b) The Government desires 110 to 120 beams over the 120 sectors when operated in this mode. (c) Yes Question 5: "The ability to maintain all beams as spec'd in 1.j. is a very broad requirement. Will the vehicle be operated at 5000m above the bottom?" ANSWER: The Government requires the variable swath mode mentioned in response to 4(a) above, and for the system capable of operation in a fixed swath width mode in which the beams are automatically modified to produce a constant swath independent of the depth of the towfish over the sea floor. Reference response to question 1. Question 6: "A center frequency of 200 kHz is specified. Is this based upon operating depth considerations or feature resolving capability? If the system met all specs at 300 kHz would this violate your specifications?" ANSWER: The 200 kHz center frequency is based on feature resolving capability and operating altitude (20m to 150m) considerations (sonar range, swath width etc). It is also based on the fact that specification 1m requires that the multibeam sonar will be operated at the same time as the existing Edge Tech dual frequency (100/400 KHz) sidescan sonar. A 200 KHz is proportionately further away from 400 KHz in frequency space than a 300 kHz system and thus less likely to interfere with the sidescan. A 300 Khz system is thus not optimum in the sense that its measurement range is limited and could interfere with the sidescan. Question 7: "Finally (and forgive me if it's in there) I can't find from the write-up if this is fixed-price or time/materials, etc.?" ANSWER: This is an acquisition for a commercial item and in accordance with FAR Part 12, it is anticipated that any resulting contract will be firm-fixed-price.

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