Goodbye, Loran-C
LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) was developed for military purposes during WWII, with first operational use in 1942. The system was retained after the war because of its usefulness to shipping, commercial fishing, and long-distance air transportation. LORAN worked by transmitting pulses from various high-powered stations scattered around the globe: the receiver measured the time differences in the reception of the pulses from different sources, from which the position of the vessel or aircraft could be calculated. In the late 1970s, the original version of the system, LORAN-A, was replaced with LORAN-C, which operated on a lower frequency, with more highly-automated receivers and with significantly increased positional accuracy. I got my first taste of Loran in 1965 when the Coast Guard assigned me to LORSTA Batan shortly after ET School. I retired from the Coast Guard in 1987 after serving almost 28 years, and 11 of those years were Loran-related assignments. Crew of Loran Monitor Stat...