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The URL I just sent out was for a paper presented at an Institute for
Navigation meeting.  I just went to ION's home page and started leafing
through various conference programs.  I was stunned to see how many
papers there were at their upcoming Annual Meeting that talked about
enhanced Loran services as an supplement for GPS.  Two or three years
ago the US Coast Guard was trying to accelerate their schedule for
shutting down Loran C.  Now it looks like they and the US Department of
Transportation (which includes the US's Federal Aviation Administration)
are concerned about possible problems with GPS in navigation
applications (such as aircraft routing or precision harbor approaches)
that require hyper-reliability and appear to be considering an enhanced
Loran as a backup system.

Program listing is at http://www.ion.org/meetings/am2005program.cfm#A1

Lu Abel


George Huxtable wrote:
> I know that references to GPS are discouraged, if not forbidden, on this
> list. But I wonder if a note about GPS shortcomings would be more
> acceptable?
>
> I've just received a leaflet from the British Lighthouse authorities,
> pushing for use of the new Loran-C transmitter at Rugby, England.
>
> In which is the statement-
>
> "GNSS systems themselves also suffer occasionally from undetected failures;
> for example, a satellite clock error on 1 January 2004 gave rise to errors
> in measured positions of up to 45 kilometres in Western Europe for a period
> of some 3 hours, resulting in onboard navigational failures."
>
> I hadn't heard about that event, which sounds rather serious. Is it common
> knowledge? Can anyone offer further details?
>
> It wouldn't have affected me. I would have been by the fireside on that day.
>
> George.
>
> ================================================================
> contact George Huxtable by email at george@huxtable.u-net.com, by phone at
> 01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy
> Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
> ================================================================
>
>

   

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