Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question is from Ted Kundtz with Needham & Company.
Ted Kundtz - Needham & Company
A couple of questions for you; one, could you talk a little bit more about the outlook for order trends that are going forward? I know they tend to be kind of lumpy, you had a great bookings trend and a great booking numbers in the third quarter and this one dropped off a bit to the book-to-bill ratio as 5.94, so do you have any sense of what you expect to see going forward? How lumpy this is? And what kind of projects you have any visibility on?
Dick Southworth
It’s not in the projects specifically Ted. Year-to-date we are at a one point, almost ’09 book-to-bill, and I would expect this year to end up at about that level. We have a lot of major programs that were a sole source on the majority on them and we just wait to come to provision here in the fourth quarter and unless there some impact from the current base of the economy we expect them to be realized.
Ted Kundtz - Needham & Company
Okay. Are you seeing any impact of the economy or you mentioned obviously the telecommunication sector was probably being the most affected by it, any other areas that you’re seeing at the moment?
Dick Southworth
I would say publicly for us Ted, the greatest thing is the uncertainty of the timing and the funding of the different programs for our military markets, but other than that the medical and industrial instrumentation sides, all seem to be going really without any ups and downs, they are very steady.
Ted Kundtz - Needham & Company
Okay and the telecomm side, is that the only area of real sort of weakness you’re seeing?
Dick Southworth
Yes and most of that has gone international now and I should say it’s over in Asia and its in fact the only area that we see any type of graph made on. In ’06 and ’07 we went through the search for the crew business, to get all the products out there for our troops and this year we will definitely be down, but it will be a good part of our business still, and we expect that that crew for Spectrum Control will be a strong ongoing market. It’s not in the step bed or anything like that; we just had to ramp up our operations tremendously in ’06 and ’07 to get all of that stuff out in to the fields for our troops.
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