LORAN Gets 3 Month Reprieve

Thad Allen is very much against continuing Loran C. Go to the Coast Guard website and read about what he says.

I doubt if anyone will change his mind.

The budget folks and Obama would do the right thing and keep LoranC upon Allen's request. But it isn't going to happen.

I had hoped some politicians from Florida and the Gulf Coast or Alask would lobby for continuation, but it does not seem to be happening.

eLoran is only being promoted in Europe. Not so much in the US.

The Loran signal at 100kHz cannot be jammed and is much more reliable than GPS. The QE2 went aground off Massachusetts a few years back because of a faulty GPS signal.

Uh...ANY electronic signal can be jammed. Learn to use a freakin compass

Please check your facts before making a statement re the QE2. I recall the incident investigation quite differently. Take a look here for a brief description and here for a slightly better one. The incident had nothing to do with GPS.

As few vessels are even equipped with Loran these days, I imagine that a catastrophic loss of GPS would result in scores if not hundreds of vessel floundering about for days. The art of navigation with sextant and chronometer, though still learned in training, are generally not practiced anymore; dead reckoning even less so.

Sorry, with all the groundings it is hard to keep track of them all in memory. I meant to reference the Royal Majesty 568 foot cruise ship incident of June 4, 1994 which ran aground on the Rose and Crown shoal 10 miles east of Nantucket (while returning to Boston from Bermuda).

This link is interesting and relevant assuming you actually want to engage in discussion rather than bash.

I apologize for your having taken offence, there was no bash intended.

Interesting link you sent. I happen to have personally witnessed the first vessel mentioned in the article, M/V Eldia, whilst she was high and dry on the beach.

Ok, but now here is the NTSB link to the Royal Majesty grounding that underscores why Obama's plan to discontinue Loran C very questionable.

As the reader will see from the report, the Loran C signal reported the vessel's position exactly on the shoal or 11 miles northwest of the gps's reported position.

Had this crew with over 100 years experience used the redundent system to recognise that they were off course, this grounding could have been avoided.

In the future, after Obama shuts down Loran C, they would not have an electronic backup system to go to even if they had chosen to.

So basically, Obama is tossing out both the redundent system AND the NTSB reports recommendations.

Hope and change we can't believe in.

ps Why didn't they listen to the fisherman who warned them on Channel 16 that they way off course.

The gps receiver switched over to dead reckoning mode which contributed to the grounding. Luckily none of the 1509 passengers were injured although $7 million dollars were lost.

I remember when Loran-C became available in the Bering Sea, enabling crab fishers to return to a string of gear many miles out of radar range from land.

On the 1979 maiden voyage of a 165-foot crab catcher-processor from the construction yard in Tell City, Indiana, through the Panama Canal, we had charts of the Panama coast, but without Loran lines. The skipper was able to extrapolate the Loran lines from adjacent charts to sufficient accuracy to get within radar distance of identifiable coastline patterns.

The OP raises a significant (as well as sentimental) question, and the first response adds interesting detail (GA).

Yep, the shipping industry will be pissed when they have to break out the sextants, binnacles, chronometers, and charts to get around. Oh well, penny wise, pound foolish administration. At least we will have the technology and the wherewithal to reestablish the LORAN system if we really had to. One wonders though if they could produce receivers fast enough.

I used LORAN in the RN (and Console as a yachting sailor! Left over from the 2nd WW, submarine navigation!!) and the equipment for LORAN (CONSOLE was just a LW radio, a stopwatch and the ability to count!!) was huge and expensive then, what does a LORAN unit cost today and how big is it?

Can it replace GPS for the casual boat owner as GPS has done? (price wise I mean!)

The Europeans want to launch a GPS "Lookalike" sometime in the future, I forget what its called.....

I have also heard that without investment the GPS System will start to lose satellites soon anyway....

The LORAN receivers I recall for pleasure craft were not much bigger than a paperback romance novel. (Why I picked that this morning as an analogy, never having read one but see them on the shelf in supermarket checkout aisle?)

So it would appear that LORAN receivers are far more expensive than GPS.......

GPS LORAN

1 : 0 Price of the units

1 : 0 Accuracy

0 : 1 Getting to the point of needing a large investment in repairs.

Any other points I/we should include?

I'm sure that if they were produced using today's technologies and volume manufacturing they would be as cheap or cheaper. I'm not advocating primary use of LORAN, but in the shipping industry/defense, a back-up system (even degraded performance) is preferable to none.