Martin County

Amateur Radio Association

Bid farewell to the Jupiter Inlet-Hobe Sound Station in place since 1960

The Hobe Sound LORAN USCGS located in the northern section of Jonathan Dickinson State Park since 1960 (prior location, Jupiter Island) is now permanently off the air, or "QRT" removing essential capabilities as a land-based backup substitute for our fragile and vulnerable satellite based GPS navigation.

From LORAN Station Tour Hobe Sound Jupiter Inlet

LORAN C, the third generation of a navigation and time reference system which guided mariners and aviators since World War II is dead. The system also provided time reference for services such as ATMs located deep within structures that do not have line of sight satellite access.

 

Without LORAN as a backup, the USA is left with no alternate navigation system. Should our satellites be destroyed or rendered inoperative our military must rely on dead reckoning and centuries old navigational techniques.

 

The Chinese government destroyed a satellite of their own in 2007 and blinded a US military satellite shortly before that event. Solar storm events may also interfere with microwave radio communications used by GPS  to a greater degree than the low frequency signals used for LORAN (indeed this is why LORAN works where GPS does not).

 

The death blow came last May when President Obama called the system obsolete, saying it is no longer needed in an age in which Global Positioning System devices are nearly ubiquitous. Of course, this same reasoning is often used to sound the bell for the sunset of Amateur Radio as well, but those of us who have weathered emergency events realize we need a backup all critical service systems should all else fail. The Aircraft Owners and Pilot's Association cites a government report indicating outages of GPS service may occur as early as 2010.

 

Read the CNN story: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/08/loran.navigation.shutdown/index.html

 

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Glenn R. Geist
Posts: 4
Comment
Loran
Reply #3 on : Thu April 08, 2010, 15:42:48
Further to the above, the decision to shut down Loran on December 31, 2000 was made a long time ago, but Congress delayed it. The DHS reexamined it again in '05, The cutoff date was later extended to 2008 and capital improvements made, but Homeland Security has been trying to shut it down against better advice since the inception of that agency.

Here's a link to a depressing keynote speech made to the International LORAN Association on 17 October 2005 in Santa Barbara, Ca by Langhorne Bond, President. http://bit.ly/c4KK7r
Paul
Posts: 4
Comment
Demise of LORAN
Reply #2 on : Thu April 08, 2010, 15:40:29
Sure, and we do not need amateur radio now that we all have cellular telephones! We all know how false that statement is and will be. LORAN, in my humble opinion, is a critical backup for the variable GPS system. If it ain't fixed, break it!
Glenn R. Geist N4HO
Posts: 4
Comment
Loran-C
Reply #1 on : Thu April 08, 2010, 15:23:27
Is it time for us to start working on an Amateur Navigation system -- for when all else fails?

I checked with God and apparently the sun, moon and stars are not subject to DHS control and budget cuts and will still be a useful backup for the foreseeable future. Works worldwide too. I've dusted off my sextant and to my relief, it still works fine.

I believe the Navy stopped teaching celestial navigation in 1998 ( along with Morse) which fact worries a lot of people (like me) as well.

I recently read an article saying that part of the impetus for developing satellite navigation was the vulnerability of LORAN in the event of a war! Preference for satellite technology instead of land based navigation seems to be world wide - it's not just the US.

Just as a point of interest, the European Union is scheduled to have their Galileo GPS system operational by 2014, which is supposed to be considerably more accurate and of course will work worldwide. Russia is working on their GLONASS system but knowing them, they may never finish and China is supposed to have their COMPASS satellite system operational shortly, which makes them just as vulnerable as we are.

All of these systems have the same weaknesses, but then LORAN was notably shaky at sunrise and sunset and during some kinds of bad weather. It may have been a viable backup, but I think the decision to stop using it - and the sextant - on military vessels was made years ago in the 90's and I don't know of anyone but some Maine lobstermen and Bering sea crab fishing operations still using it.

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