When I was writing my piece about Loran last month, it became obvious that I needed some guidance. In fact, that piece concludes with this: ‘I’m just really curious about why Loran seems to be so “Off again, on again, gone again.”’
So I contacted some high level navigation people I know at the Coast Guard, and they put me in touch with Commander Bob Feigenblatt of the eNavigation Branch.
I shared my posting with him, and he drafted a response for me. Unfortunately, that response had to be reviewed and cleared before it could be released, so it wasn’t available by the time MadMariner went to press with that item.
But I’ve got that response in hand now, and it is extremely clear: Loran-C and eLoran are horses of different colors.
OK, that’s not the way Commander Feigenblatt states it. Here’s my executive summary of his response:
- Loran-C is obsolete, and it’s going away in the United States.
- eLoran does not exist in the United States.
- It remains unclear what sort of system will emerge as a reliable Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) backup for GPS.
Those are pretty unequivocal statements, but that’s what the man says:
The President’s proposed 2010 budget identifies potential savings across the federal government to reduce the Nation’s deficit and to discontinue outdated programs. Included therein is termination of the Loran-C system for an immediate savings of $36M and $190M over five years.
The Loran–C system was a valuable position, navigation, and timing system when it was established in 1957. As a result of technological advancements over the last 20 years and the emergence of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), Loran-C is no longer required by the armed forces, the transportation sector, or the nation’s security interests, and is used only by a small segment of the population. Loran-C systems are only used by a handful of nations in the world and its coverage is available to limited portions of the northern hemisphere and not at all in the southern hemisphere.
The Loran-C system was not established as, nor was it intended to be, a viable systemic backup for GPS.
Consistent with the 2008 Federal Radionavigation Plan, the Department of Homeland Security will continue to work with other federal agencies to look across the critical infrastructure and key resource sectors to determine the need for a single domestic system as a backup to GPS.
Enhanced Loran (eLoran) does not exist in the United States. There is neither the funding nor the authority to modernize Loran-C to eLoran. Significant additional government investment of hundreds of millions of dollars would be required to transform the Loran-C system into eLoran to potentially serve as a systemic Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) backup for GPS.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I would unequivocally have to say that this a politically worded statement that absolutely fails to address facts in any way and is the Commander’s best attempt to avoid the wrath of the administration with regard to stated policy. The LORAN system has already been upgraded and implementation of eLORAN would NOT require the investment the Commander has stated. Further, following the decommissioning of LORAN, the net impact to the U.S. economy from any disruption of the sole remaining PNT service (GPS) would incur costs far in excess of any savings or costs associated with maintaining LORAN and implementing eLORAN. I would like to have a “Change I Can Believe In” but so far I haven’t seen anything that indicates to me that the new administration ever bothers to research it’s ‘Facts’ before opening it’s mouth. PNT is a critical cornerstone of our national infrastructure and LORAN is ALREADY a suitable backup to GPS. We would be absolutely wrong to put all our eggs in the GPS basket and then figure out what to do after something happens to disrupt GPS (either solar activity, or more malicious acts).
eLoran question.
I’ve read all the Web postings I can find and haven’t yet determined if the proposed eLoran upgrade is backward compatible. I still have a Loran-C receiver on my sailboat that I maintain as a backup to GPS.
Will older Loran-C receivers just ignore the additional eLoran data channel and continue to operate as they did before, or will migration to the new system require replacement of the embedded base of user equipment?
I understand that the old equipment will not be able to take advantage of enhanced accuracy and additional available information, but old Loran-C has sufficient accuracy for my purposes, and probably does for the millions of users who have such equipment.