Current Status
On April 28, 2010 the U.S. Coast Guard demolished the Loran transmitter tower in Port Clarence Alaska. Video of the destruction can be viewed on YouTube: close up, from a distance
At approximately 3:00 PM EST today February 8, 2010 the U.S. Coast Guard stopped transmitting Loran from most of its transmitters. The only transmissions continuing are part of transmission chains with either Canada or Russia and these transmissions are projected to be terminated by summer 2010.
The U.S. Loran system has been modernized over the last 10 years and was ready to be upgraded to eLoran when President Obama identified it for termination in 2009. The eLoran system was designed to be a backup for GPS and had many backers from industry, academia and Congress. eLoran would have provided the needed resilience to the existing nation wide PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing) infrastructure which is at risk from unintentional and intentional jamming and outages.
The current Loran system is operated by the U.S. Coast Guard with a $36 million budget thus resulting in a 5 year $190 million dollar savings according to the Office of Management and Budget. Government commissioned studies have concluded and demonstrated the Loran system could be operated with a $10 million annual budget and the streamlined operation of the system would result in improved stability and quality of the system.
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As of December 1, 2009 the Commandant has certified the Loran-C signal will not adversely impact safety of Maritime navigation. However the Secretary of Homeland Security has not certified her portion. The latest information is that DHS is "reviewing using eLoran as a backup to GPS."
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On October 28, President Barack Obama signed the Department of Homeland Defense (DHS) appropriations bill that allows termination of Loran-C in Jan 2010. This bill stipulates prior to termination the following must happen:
(1) the Commandant of the Coast Guard certifies that the termination of the operation of the Loran-C signal as of the date specified in subsection (a) will not adversely impact the safety of maritime navigation; and
(2) the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies that the Loran-C system infrastructure is not needed as a backup to the Global Positioning System or to meet any other Federal navigation requirement.
If the certifications described above are made, the Coast Guard shall, commencing January 4, 2010, terminate the operation of the Loran-C signal and commence a phased decommissioning of the Loran-C system infrastructure.
eLORAN >>
eLoran: Current Situation
eLoran: Current Situation
CrossRate Technology, LLC continues to educate the U.S. Government to the safety risks of no GPS backup and the enhanced capabilities of an eLoran system. Dismantling of the Loran infrastructure will result in very little savings but dramatically increase the startup costs when the Department of Homeland Security recognizes a backup to GPS is needed. In the mean time CrossRate will focus on the international community where there is strong support of Loran and conviction that GPS requires a non-satellite based backup technology.
