On Thu, 07 May 2009 23:22:53 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Thu, 7 May 2009 10:57:09 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:

I always liked the reliability of LORAN.

It was a huge step forward at the time but had serious limitations if
you used it a lot.

Loran was/is highly susceptible to interference from alternators,
ignition systems and thunderstorms - frequently resulting in total
loss of signal at inopportune times. I ended up installing a switch
to disable the alternator on one of my old sailboats so that I could
get a reliable position fix when I really needed it.

There are other issues that appear when you are too close to one of
the transmitting stations like the one on Nantucket or Jupiter,
Florida, or the geometry of the crossing LOPs was less than optimal.

Going offshore we used to lose the signals completely about 400 miles
out, not quite far enough to navigate to Bermuda.

I got a GPS as soon as they became readily available in the early '90s
and have never looked back. In 1994 the boat I was on took a near hit
from a lightening strike about 300 miles offshore. It knocked out
all of the electronics on board. We continued on to Bermuda using
nothing but my pocket GPS which I had recently purchased just before
the trip.

Those are all good points, but (ain't there always) the GPS system is
designed to be shut down, except for aircraft and military receivers,
in cases of national emergency. And the Chinese and Russians can
certainly reach out and touch the satellites either blinding them or
destroying them in fairly short order. And EMP (either natural or by
man caused diasters) can wreck havoc on ground recievers.

For the cost it takes to keep the system running as a back up to GPS,
it certainly seems cost effective. Heck, a few hundred million to
upgrade and do some research on improving the system - what's it gonna
hurt besides taking some organizing money away from the UAW and ACORN.

The same argument applies to LORAN as it does to Morse - simple to
use, effective and it does the job - perhaps not perfectly, but it
does do the job. Why kill it for the sake of a very minor cost savings
when it's potential to actually be useful is large and very real?

And if I remember correctly, there was some discussion at one time
about a new LORAN translator algorithym that was a better positioning
system, but nothing ever came of it. I wonder what happened to that?

Maybe it's being a Luddite, but this reliance on heavy technology is
going to bite humanity in the ass some day - simpler is always better.