How GPS Is Killing Lighthouses

sakshale writes "Spiegel Online has an article about the impact of GPS systems on Lighthouses. They claim that the popularity of the satellite-based global positioning system has led to the closure of lighthouses along the German coast." As the article says, "critics question whether the new system is reliable and safe enough to warrant the closure of these historical beacons of safety."

Comments

Re:By falling out of the sky!

[Anonymous Coward]

Surveyors can let a GPS "integrate" and use other techniques that don't work on a moving boat.

Also in many parts of the world knowing your exact possition to within meters is not as good as it sound because the charts are not so good. For example if the big rock is charted 1/2 mile ast of where it really is. This is common. Radars and lighthouses will still be needed for a long time.

Every book and navigation class will tell you to NEVER depend on only one source of navigation data. Always use at least two and cross check.

I typically use simple techniques from the pre-electronic era to comfirm the GPS. I've punch ed in a wrong number on the GPS and would have gone off in a totally wrong direction

Re:Galileo

[AB3A]

Selective Availability can be circumvented with a number of interesting technologies. I've heard rumors of the use of two GPS receivers placed a known distance apart being used to cancel out the SA part of GPS.

There are a number of differential GPS technologies which are in service right now for improving accuracy. There is also WAAS. In theory, the military can turn those off too. But in reality, Differential GPS is distributed such that someone would actually have to go to the differential transmitter site and shut it down. It's not just a matter of flipping a switch.

What it all comes down to is that you don't have to break the SA crypto. There are other ways of improving the accuracy of your position if you really care about such things.

Let's not forget the Russian GLONASS system, either.

But what really killed lighthouses wasn't GPS. It was LORAN. And LORAN has been all over Europe and the Middle East for decades. It is ground based, and we "arrogant cowboys" have very little to do with it.

I'm afraid that this is yet another case of European leftist propaganda. If it hadn't been for GPS killing off light houses, it would have been something else --and it's easy to blame the US for it. Easy, but wrong.