Bringing back Loran?

Kyt · Jun 19, 2008

BBC NEWS | Politics | MPs warned of GPS jamming risks

The government is being urged to invest in a radio system developed during the Second World War, as a back-up to GPS satellite navigation.

Loran is less vulnerable to jamming than GPS and could protect vital infrastructure after a terror attack, a committee of MPs was told.

Doug Umbers, whose firm runs an updated version of Loran for UK coastguards said it was far more robust than GPS.

The Defence Committee was quizzing a panel of defence industry chiefs.

Asked about keeping communications going in the event of a terrorist incident or other emergency, Mr Umbers said: "The last man standing, typically, will be the high frequency radio communications that we run, on behalf of the military."

But he said the low frequency Loran, which stands for Long Range Navigation, could be used as a back-up to GPS.

"GPS is quite jammable - very easily jammable," he told the MPs, adding that a pen-sized device could "stop ships in a port being able to receive GPS".

But, he added, "you need a huge field of transmitters" to jam Loran. It was "highly resilient and mission critical clearly, for the maritime market, and could also have uses elsewhere".

Galileo

Loran was originally developed during the Second World War as a maritime navigation aid and is based on the principle of the time difference between signals from a pair of radio transmitters.

Critics, who have called for it to be switched off, say it is not cost-effective as a navigation tool and has too few users.

But after nearly dying out a few years ago it is enjoying renewed interest as a possible back-up system to GPS and Galileo, the proposed European satellite guidance system.

Mr Umbers' company, VT Communications, last year landed a 15 year contract to develop enhanced Loran, known as e-Loran, for the General Lighthouse Authorities (GLA) in the UK, at its station in Cumbria.

Hand-held GPS jamming devices, aimed at drivers worried their cars have been fitted with tracking devices, are available to buy over the internet.

But security experts are also concerned about the possibility of more large scale jamming of GPS.

'Weaknesses'

Satellite navigation systems underpin much of the world's infrastructure, including financial markets, telecoms, power generation and distribution as well as transport and the emergency services.

The US Department of Homeland Security in February this year announced it was developing a version of e-Loran to protect critical infrastructure that depends on GPS for position, navigation and timing.

Dr Sally Basker, the GLA's director of research and radio navigation, urged European governments to follow suit.

She said Europe was the only part of the world now not developing Loran as a back-up to satellite navigation systems.

"We all see that GPS and Galileo have the potential to do great things and also how far satellite navigation has got into our critical infrastructure but we also know that it has some weaknesses," she told BBC News.

Jamming trials

She said Loran should be considered as a relatively inexpensive complement to GPS and Galileo which, as the GLA's own jamming trials had shown, was easily taken out of action, leaving ships without navigation.

The Ministry of Defence last year carried out a series of GPS jamming trials to find out how interference could affect military personnel.

In one test it jammed GPS over a 50 square mile area of Cornwall over two days, warning emergency services and coastguards in advance.

In a statement issued at the time, it said: "Although GPS provides highly accurate information, the radio signals from the satellite are extremely weak and are susceptible to both jamming and unintentional radio interference.

"The trials are taking place to better understand these effects on military equipment and therefore will help to protect our forces."

July 7 attacks

The Commons defence committee, which is investigating UK national security and resilience, quizzed a panel of five defence industry experts at its evidence session on Tuesday.

Tony Baptiste, of Fujitsu UK, said the electronics giant was trying to interest the British government in an emergency radio system, of the type used by the US authorities during the Hurricane Katrina emergency.

He said the system - which involves dropping radio and CCTV receivers and transmitters into tunnels - could have been used after the 7 July bomb attacks, when the emergency services found they could not communicate underground.

All five industry experts being quizzed spoke of the difficulty of finding a single point of contact for anti-terrorist procurement in the government.

But they also agreed that a new Homeland Security department, of the kind set-up in the US, was not necessary as the disruption caused while setting it up would cancel out any advantage.
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LORAN - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LORAN was an American development of the British GEE radio navigation system (used during World War II). While GEE had a range of about 400 miles (644 km), early LORAN systems had a range of 1,200 miles (1,930 km). LORAN systems were built during World War II and were used extensively by the US Navy and Royal Navy. The RAF also used LORAN on raids beyond the range of GEE.[1] It was originally known as "LRN" for Loomis radio navigation, after millionaire and physicist Alfred Lee Loomis, who invented LORAN and played a crucial role in military research and development during WWII.
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morse1001 · Jun 19, 2008

On the mk3 and the Seal Class Boats, we used Decca Navigator, which was a the british version of loran.

Loran, itself was part of the Nav fit of Nimrods in the late 1970s!

But, I can see the sense of keeping it available in the event of some major incident was blocks GPS. But there again, I see the world a worse place because they have done away with Morse Code!

Antipodean Andy · Jun 19, 2008

Very true, Morseman.

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