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US Coast Guard Intends To Kill LORAN-C
adaviel writes "LORAN (Long Range Aids to Navigation) is an electronic navigation system using low-frequency radio, used by many boaters (including me) before GPS. It has an approximately 200m accuracy and is a functional replacement in case GPS fails or the US implements selective availability in time of war. The US Coast Guard, part of the Department of Homeland Security, intends to turn it off starting February 8." This is in spite of $160M spent on modernizing LORAN stations over the past 10 years.
What a complimentary system sounds like: "My, what a nice position. That lat/long looks so good on you."
Of course, such a system would only be useful as a complement.
Sailors, I guess.
As trollish as your post is, I would wager that it is more than a little likely that LORAN is being turned off precisely because it is a beacon based system that selective availability cannot be implemented over. There is no way that LORAN could be used to provide positioning data to select parties.
Personally, I don't think this is a safe thing to do. Maritime equipment is notorious for being long lived. I would highly doubt that there are no boats that are still dependent on legacy systems. Well, I guess this is one way to ensure that they upgrade.
Feb 8:
First Officer: Captain! We've lost navigational systems!
Captain: Damn! That can mean only one thing. Arm photon torpedoes!
First Officer: Err.... we're a 32 year old fishing trawler and we don't have any...
Captain: Quiet! There's no time! Transfer engineering to the bridge and make sure we've got warp if we need it.
I hate printers.