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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."
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Isn't GPS run by the United States government? Are other countries sure it's a good idea to be relying on that?
Lighthouses have been obsolete since radar came to be. GPS is hardly the starting point for this. At any rate, I'm a fan of lighthouse preservation efforts as I think they're a very interesting part of our evolution of navagational technology, and, in some cases, quite beautiful. Lighthouses have been pretty well obsolete for 40 years.
As such, the U.S. military can turn off the satelites or scramble their signal whenever it deems appropriate. So, before our friends the Germans decide to become overly dependant on U.S. technology, they ought to ensure that the world is a stable place otherwise they may find themselves hung out to dry on the reef.
...as tourist attractions. In fact the actual light and other equipment has been automated for years. Many navigational beacons are solar powered, and almost maintenance free.
the moment satellites or the gps system fails, we'll get something like: Believe it or not...this is the transcript of an actual radio conversation between a US naval ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. The Radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on Oct. 10, 1995. US Ship: Please divert your course 0.5 degrees to the south to avoid a collision. CND reply: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision. US Ship: This is the Captain of a US Navy Ship. I say again, divert your course. CND reply: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course! US Ship: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS CORAL SEA*, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!! CND reply: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
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Lighthouses have been obsolete since radar came to be. GPS is hardly the starting point for this.
As a boater I can tell you that neither radar nor GPS makes lighthouses obsolete. Nor did LORAN before them.
Sure, if you've got it and its working you can tell where you are. Within a football field if selective-availability is on, much better if it's off.
And the big commercial ships have them and they're usually working.
And the small commercial ships in well-to-do countries (like fishing boats for instance) may have them and they may be working.
And the more well-to-do pleasure-boaters may have them and they may be working.
But there are a LOT of boats out there that DON'T have them. The BULK of them, if you're talking numbers.
Fishermen may not have them - and may have other things to deal with than watching a screen. Most pleasure boats are small fry, not millionaires' giant toys. (A small ocean-capable cruising sailboat, for instance, may be considerably less expensive than an RV of a similar size.)
Even if they have them, any bets whether they're working when you're coming in after a month at sea, two years after they were purchased? Salt spray is HELL on electronics, and gets into everything.
And even when they do have them, and they are operating, a boater may think he's far out to sea when he's actually almost onto a hidden hazard, and not be looking. (A lighted nav marker, among other things, is the idiot-light of boating.)
Saying GPS obsoletes lighthouses is like saying GPS-based navigation systems for cars obsolete stop signs, curve signs, and the blinking lights associated with them.
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you kill a lighthouse!
Please, think of the historical beacons of safety.
Everyone here seems to get it wrong. We went through the same thing over the last few years on the west coast of Canada over closing up lighthouses, replacing them with automatic beacons. A lot of them are starting to be opened again and staffed by humans. Why?
Everyone thinks a lighthouse just sits there and looks bright in the darkness. The ones on the west coast here:
- radio in weather reports from their stations
- test the water for pollution and temperature
- test salinity of the water at high and low tides
- send in visibility reports
- assist passing boaters with information via radio.
- assist boaters who know where they are already (thanks to those GPSs) but also know they're in trouble.
Last week I saw a thing on TV on the daily schedule of a lighthouse up in northwest BC. Did you know the lighthouse keepers' day starts at 3AM with the first readings and goes until 10 PM? Which is usually why it's either a family or at least 2 people staffing them.
GPS units can help you avoid troubles just fine, but if you're already in a situation, it can't do more than tell you where you are. A lighthouse can coordinate assistance efforts on your behalf, and if you're close enough, may be able to either guide you in, or come get you in their launch.
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
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.
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