Coast Guard to Cease Loran C

[fgentges at mindspring.com]

It looks like GPS has become so predominate for navigation that it has 
been decided by the US Government Coast Guard to cease operations. 
Other countries in Asia and Europe still maintain some Loran C 
navigation chains.

Just a few years ago there was a lot of discussion of building a 
mid-continent chain to fill the navigational coverage gap between the 
East and West coast.  By filling the mid-continent gap, Loran C was seen 
as a means to navigate aircraft, riverboats on the Missouri and 
Mississippi rivers and that others such as trucks and crazy hams could 
use it.  It never was finished.

I was assigned a Navy project called Clarinet Pilgrim wherein teletype 
data was put onto the navigation signal.  100 kW pulses at 100 kHz can 
travel long distances. Pilgrim was turned off long ago in the 1970s.

Keep your sextants cleaned and oiled in case the GPS system goes down. 
An no, I don't know of a secret communications system piggybacking on 
the sextant.

The official word is at:

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-84.pdf