Amateur Radio and Yachting

My partner has a SEA 332. It tested out at purchase over 5 years ago. Never touched.
17 years ago, our Icom 600 was zapped by lightning. Replaced with a 700Pro.
Had the fax receiver and toys.
That may had been the last time I keyed up anything other than Marine VHF.
A few years later, took the dust collector out and gave it aweigh. Have not missed it.
Cell and borrowed Sat phone work to darn good when cruising.

I'll learn more about that Antarctic crew from YF than over the radio waves.

Could AI-Fueled Amateur Radio Rebuild Loran-C?

John Konrad

February 18, 2023

by John Konrad, K5HIP Loran-C was an incredibly reliable and accurate analog ground-based navigation system, operated by the US Coast Guard. Despite its impressive performance, it had some drawbacks, such as limited coverage, expensive infrastructure requirements, and the need to maintain a large number of radio stations in remote areas. Now with concerns over GPS jamming and hacking should we consider rebuilding the UnitedState’s once robust system of Loran-C stations?

Prior to its decommissioning in 2010, then-USCG Commandant Thad Allen proposed upgrading the system to E-Loran, a digitalized and automated version of Loran-C that would provide improved accuracy and resistance to jamming and other forms of interference. However, due to a lack of Pentagon concern regarding a potential technology or space war with China and vulnerabilities to Russian hackers at the time, Congress did not fund the proposal and the old Loran stations were removed from service. In order to implement future upgrades, the entire Loran network of stations would need to be rebuilt.

Several countries, including the United Kingdom and Russia, have continued investing in developing E-Loran systems. However, despite the potential benefits of E-Loran, it has not been widely adopted and is not currently in use as a backup to GPS.

The death blow to E-Loran came due to a total lack of interest from Silicon Valley who in 2010 – before the advent of crowd-sharing networks like Uber – favored bits over atoms and mostly did not believe that tiny devices like a cell phones – which work on very short wavelength radio frequencies – could process the large wavelength transmissions of a high-frequency radio system like Loran.

Today however, high-frequency capable chips are ubiquitous – you can decode HF navtex and DSD signals with a $30 dongle from Amazon – and the benefits of E-Loran could be substantial. What benefits? First and foremost is penetration. Right now phone use advanced processing and signal intelligence to augment GPS to provide a location when you enter a parking garage, building, or even hike in dense foliage. This is required because GPS signals use short wavelengths that don’t penetrate structures very well. Loran signals – with their large wavelengths that travel great distances – do.

What’s Better About Loran?

Some of the advantages of Loran-C over GPS were:

1. Better performance in high-latitude regions: GPS signals can be significantly degraded in high-latitude regions due to the geometry of the satellites’ orbits. In contrast, Loran-C signals are not affected by the satellites’ orbits and can provide accurate navigation information in high-latitude regions. This is increasingly important as Arctic security has become a top priority.
2. Higher accuracy for short-range navigation: Loran-C was initially designed for short-range navigation, and it could provide higher accuracy than GPS for distances of up to 1,000 nautical miles.
3. Greater resistance to jamming: GPS signals must use solar panels that can power only weak signals that are vulnerable to intentional or unintentional interference, such as jamming or spoofing. Loran-C signals, which can use hundreds of watts of power, were less susceptible to jamming or spoofing, making it more reliable in certain situations.
4. Availability of backup systems: Loran-C had redundant systems and could provide backup navigation information in case of GPS outages or failures.
5. Being a terrestrial system it can be better defended and repaired during a conflict with a space-equipped adversary like Russia.

In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) conducted a study on the feasibility of establishing an E-Loran system as a backup to GPS in 2008. The study concluded that E-Loran had significant potential as a backup system, but the implementation of the system would require significant investment and support from the private sector. Despite the promising results of the study, the E-Loran system was not implemented as a backup to GPS in the United States due to budget constraints and a lack of interest from the private sector.

Could The Loran System be Rebuilt?

With space savvy adversaries like Russia and China becoming increasingly aggressive the Department of Defense has started to reinvest in High Frequency communication systems. While the US Navy and US Coast Guard continue to have limited interest in terrestrial based radio, the US Air Force is investing heavily in “old” radio sytems. Just last year the US Air Force, in partnership with BAE Systems, awarded a $176m contract to Ham Radio manufacturer FlexRadio to return HF radio to the cockpits of it’s aircraft and Ukraine is using ham radios to communicate behind enemy lines. What’s old is new again but rebuilding the entire Loran system would require puchasing land, running millions of miles of cable, installation of new radio infrastructure, and training of personnel to operate and maintain the system. This cost would far exceed the few hundred million the USAF is investing in HF.

The Loran system could be rebuilt in densely populated areas with existing infrastructure for less but coverage would be limited. So is there a better way?

Ham Radio FT8

FT8 is a digital mode of communication used by amateur radio operators for making radio contacts over long distances. It was developed by Nobel prize winning physicist Joe Taylor (K1JT) and ham radio operator Steve Franke (K9AN) as part of the WSJT-X software suite for amateur radio communications.

FT8 is designed for weak signal communications and is particularly useful for making contacts under poor propagation conditions, such as during times of low solar activity or when atmospheric noise is high. The mode uses internet synchronized clocks a fixed-length transmission of 15 seconds, during which the transmission is spread out over multiple subcarriers, providing a high degree of error correction.

FT8 is characterized by its highly automated operation, where the operator simply selects a frequency, sets the transmit power, and lets the software handle the rest. The software performs an exchange of information between the two stations, and the operator receives a confirmation of a successful contact.

FT8 has gained popularity among amateur radio operators due to its ease of use, high degree of error correction, and ability to make contacts over long distances under poor propagation conditions. It is commonly used for weak signal digital modes in the HF bands, such as 6 meters, 2 meters, and 70 centimeters. Today thousands of stations transmit time-synchronized FT8 signals from fixed stations around world that provide reach to every corner of the planet.

Don’t build, Crowd Source

Building out a new E-Loran system would likely be too expensive for even the most well funded defense organizations like the DoD or NATO but, with Ham radio operators already emitting accurate time synchronized HF signals from fixed transmitting locations it’s possible to triangulate a position already. The problem is noisy. Are all the clocks of these ham radio operators perfectly synchronized? Are they all transmitting from their stated locations? What if a HAM radio operator moves and doesn’t update his position with the FCC or operates FT8 from a mobile RV or boat?

This is where AI could help. It is possible for AI to watch out for inaccuracies in the system. It could monitor stations over a long period of time and rate them on their accuracy and signal strength. It could flag and remove errant signals. This, of course, all requires a lot of processing power but each iPhone is more powerful than any supercomputer when GPS was invented.

The programing would be a challenge too but with a Nobel Laureate like Dr. Joe Taylor, intelligent Hams, equipment manufacturers like FlexRadio and Elecraft, assistance from Apple and GoogleOceans and DoD funding it should be possible to harness the system for navigational purposes and provide a redundant backup to GPS while allowing for better locational coverage for our phones.

Conclusion

In conclusion, rebuilding the Loran-C system is a feasible endeavor, albeit one that would require a considerable amount of investment, time, and expertise. This is not an insurmountable task, however, considering the most popular and revolutionary ship location tracking technology of today – web based AIS systems like Marine Traffic – already utilizes ham radio receive stations around the world, and has proven to be a reliable and invaluable asset to the shipping industry. A radio-based navigation system like E-Loran would necessitate licensed and regulated radio transmitters, but luckily, thousands of these stations are already running FT8 on every continent, making it possible to crowd-source an HF navigational alternative to GPS, eliminating the need for the USCG to acquire land and maintain stations. And if the existing equipment isn’t accurate enough, the US Navy and USCG could help FlexRadio develope new ham hardware.

At least theoretically.

eLoran Sparks Debate In Washington – Is It Truly Important?
John Konrad

June 20, 2009

While we have covered eLoran before, most notably in this eLoran FAQ early last year, new headlines provide the need for revisiting the topic. In an article titled “Will Obama Kill Navigation Backup System as GPS Threatens to Fail?” Popular Mechanics tells us:

Even as a government watchdog agency warns that GPS navigation satellites could fail, the Obama administration’s proposed fiscal 2010 budget has quietly killed the nation’s backup navigation system.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report last week warning, “It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption. If not, some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected.” The report also notes that the current program is about $870 million over budget and the launch of its first satellite has been delayed to November 2009, almost three years late.

This GAO report comes at a bad time for the Obama administration, which cut funding for the nation’s only backup to GPS from its 2010 budget. The LORAN system, which stands for Long-Range Aids to Navigation, is a network of terrestrial transmission stations, equipped with antennas as tall as 900 feet and staffed with Coast Guard personnel.

The network has been on the verge of obsolescence because GPS has a wider range and can transmit more precise information. That’s why Peter Orszag, director of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget, in an online posting on the White House’s websitewrote the “long-range, radio-navigation system has been made obsolete by GPS.” (Full Article Link)

From its invention by Alfred Lee Loomis to assist the Navy and Air Force during WWI to the wide scale adoption of GPS in the 90’s, Loran served the navigation needs of mariners in coastal waters. While Loran-C receivers have been taken off the bridges of most merchant ships it’s replacement, GPS, suffers from enough faults that every mariner is still required by the US Coast Guard to learn both terrestrial and celestial navigation.

What is eLoran?
Enhanced LORAN, also known as eLORAN or E-LORAN, comprises an advancement in receiver design and transmission characteristics which increase the accuracy and usefulness of traditional LORAN. With reported accuracy as good as ± 8 meters, the system becomes competitive with unenhanced GPS. eLoran also includes additional pulses which can transmit auxiliary data such as DGPS corrections. eLoran receivers now use “all in view” reception, incorporating signals from all stations in range, not solely those from a single GRI, incorporating time signals and other data from up to 40 stations. These enhancements in LORAN make it adequate as a substitute for scenarios where GPS is unavailable or degraded. (Source Wikipedia)

So what are the problems with GPS?
Control

First, although other systems, like Russia’s GLONASS, the EU’s Galileo and China’s COMPASS, look to provide redundancy of satellites and control, the GPS system is wholly owned and operated by the US Military. In my career at sea I have only seen failure of the system once, while sailing in the Bay Of Bengal around the start of the Iraq War… coincidence?

Redundancy

At sea we like redundancy. All large ships carry two systems for critical operations including 2 compasses (gyroscopic and magnetic), 2 abandonment systems (Lifeboats and Liferafts) and 2 emergency communication systems (radio and INMARSAT satellite based). Currently our primary costal navigation is done via GPS with redundancy provided by fixes, either radar or visual bearings taken from a gyro compass repeater, and I hope this does not change, but as electronic data becomes further integrated in systems like Dynamic Positioning, ECDIS and AIS, safe navigation of vessels in no longer 100% in the control of the watch-stander and his trusty lookout. Should these new systems not have the redundancy of eLoran built in?

For an answer to this question you need not look any further than the offshore industry. New drillships and Semi-submersibles, operating in water depths of up to 10,000 feet, require extremely accurate positioning data to feed their dynamic positioning (DP) computers and they do not rely on GPS alone. To keep station directly above a wellhead thousands of feet with strict tolerances these vessels deploy accoustic bouys on the sea floor to confirm the GPS data. While moving ships can not lay buoys on the sea floor, do large cruise ships and shuttle tankers using the same DP computers not deserve similar redundancy?

Line Of Sight

All positioning systems are line of sight which creates problems. Celestial navigation can not be done under heavy cloud cover, terrestrial bearings are no good in fog and radar fails when a target is behind land. In the same way GPS has it’s failings. While GPS satellites are capable of transmitting signals regardless of weather conditions if the unit’s view of the sky is obstructed it can fail. A recent report (that I can’t seem to locate at the moment) even discussed how GPS receivers are getting so sensitive that they are picking up signals from satellites not in view but bounced off nearby structures. The result is a loss of accurate positioning.

Signal Strength

For various reasons the signal strength of GPS is significantly weaker than that of terrestrial radio systems. This creates the problem of GPS being easily muted anything from a foreign military anti-satellite missiles to a terrorist’s home-built system. There are even documented cases of GPS receivers interfering with nearby units.

New Devices

Imagine a car navigation unit (maybe one that inspires a new form of ECDIS?) that works inside a parking garage? While GPS may never have this capability eLoran will. As development money is put into manufacturing small chips for this new system your next TomTom may auto-switch from GPS to eLoran. While parking garages are of little concern to mariners, with a little imagination, new systems will be developed to utilize these chips in marine systems.

Next Steps
The mariner is facing a few critical battles in the electronic navigation front. With their adoption of Web 2.0, the deployment of Rescue 21 and a myriad of other, forward thinking, initiatives the USCG is taking a leading role in the development of new technology aimed at maritime safety but, as encouraging as their work towards using new technology to keep safe is, questions still arise within the USCG on the necessity of critical systems. You need not look further than ********’s post titled “Vessel Search And Rescue – Should LRIT Replace Amver?” to realize the USCG, IMO and others are struggling with questions that seem rhetorical to the average mariner. It is our job to help guide the decisions, let our thoughts be known and avoid failures in imagination.

Let’s support the adoption of eLoran and continue dreaming of reasons for its use. Sure it is not absolutely needed to safely operate ships and competent mariners will continue to learn traditional navigation but, like GPS today, future mariners will view eLoran as a tool they couldn’t possibly live without.

eLoran Links

• The Case For eLoran – USCG NavCenter