[time-nuts] End of Loran-C in Europe confirmed.

[Bob Camp]

Hi

Each navigation chain requires 4 stations for navigation (one master to supply 
timing and three slaves to triangulate against). For reasonable navigation solutions
you are limited to an area much smaller than the entire US. You can get a bit more
distance over an “all water” path (it’s more predictable / easier to correct). Even so,
it will take a half dozen or so chains to cover the US.

========

The real issue here is not the death of Loran providers, but the death of Loran users.
When they go out and ask “how much do you need Loran?” and the answers mostly come
back “what’s Loran? I use GPS all the time…”. That’s the root of the problem. The active GPS “user 
group” is probably 99.xxx% of the population. The “aware I use GPS” user group is probably 
>75% of the population. The active Loran users (pre shutdown) … probably < 0.25%.

Bob

> On Dec 19, 2015, at 1:17 PM, paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> It is very sorry to hear that this is happening.
> This was the same lame excuse they used in the US. Save 2 cents then find
> out you don't have launch vehicles to get replacement GPS satellites in
> orbit. Nor the funds to build the satellites.
> I am actually happy I did not build the large loop for European reception.
> As it would have just started working and then stopped.
> eLORAN  for at least frequency and timing needs 1 station. So if thats the
> application then with whats left there can be a very good distribution of
> these two components as we see here in the US with 1 station doing eLORAN
> testing and thats not even a full power station.
> Oddly the US may be coming around to eLORAN. It seems promissing.
> Rightly stated for navigation you need more stations. I think in teh past
> it was 24. But appears that 4 will cover the US and thats a lot of area.
> All of the Westcoast stations are intact. The East coast has been gutted
> and many antennas are down. But enough exist for eLORAN.
> Long strange trip we are on. My fingers are crossed for eLORAN.
> Regards
> Paul
> WB8TSL
> 
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 10:13 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
> wrote:
> 
>> --------
>> In message <5673C1BD.6070206 at rubidium.dyndns.org>, Magnus Danielson
>> writes:
>> 
>>> It seems like the biggest problem for Loran-C is that they have not been
>>> able to build an economical model to support it. That it complements the
>>> GPS and GLONASS systems, as well as GALILEO in a somewhat different mode
>>> disturbance is a technical detail which doesn't ripple though the reports.
>> 
>> No, it's really very simple, in Europe it is all about saving face.
>> 
>> The political bluff which should have moved GPS control to NATO
>> rather than DoD failed, and forced the EU to follow through.
>> 
>> Finding the claimed eager private investors failed predictably and in
>> the end EU had to fund Galileo with tax money, precisely like pretty
>> much every had predicted.
>> 
>> Then the draft European Radio Navigation Plan said that at few
>> millions on LORAN produced 40% of the benefit while all the billions
>> for Galileo hardly produced any[1].
>> 
>> In other words:  Some almost-pensioners with 50 year old cold-war
>> tech were about 100 times more cost-efficient than the biggest
>> political prestige project of EU's history.
>> 
>> No wonder all copies of that draft has vanished from the surface
>> of the planet.
>> 
>> Poul-Henning
>> 
>> [1] The two lost/marooned Galileo sats have cost about the same as
>> updating and running Loran-C for 10-15 years would have.
>> 
>> --
>> Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
>> phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
>> FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
>> Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
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