(Note: This report was held up waiting for the editing and approval of the Resolution developed during the final session of the symposium.)

The past and the future of Loran-C were addressed at the Plenary Session of the 1996 ILA Annual Convention and Technical Symposium held at the Catamaran Resort Hotel in San Diego, California at the beginning of November. Being the Association’s Silver Anniversary the theme chosen was to reflect on the past 25 years of Loran-C operation and to look to the future 25 years. In doing so, it was felt that the dedicated performance of individuals in the Coast Guard who had been responsible for the high level of Loran-C service for the past 25 years or more should be recognized. In addition, it was considered appropriate to commend the action of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to implement Loran-C in the mid-continent to serve the General Aviation and land user community. To accomplish this a special President’s Award was presented to the Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT), Federico Peña, representing both the Coast Guard and the FAA. Replicas of the award addressed individually to the Coast Guard and the FAA were also given. Nominated by the Secretary to receive this award on behalf of the Department of Transportation was Capt. Jim Doherty of the Coast Guard who also accepted the awards presented to the Coast Guard and the FAA. Responding to the presentation, Captain Doherty said "We greatly appreciate this recognition, it is important to all those that do a tour of duty at the Loran-C stations, especially in the remote areas. I will make sure that this ceremony and award is communicated to those in the field."

The second half of the Plenary Session was devoted to the future of Loran-C in the United States and was dominated by the Congressional legislation that had recently been signed into public law by President Clinton. The legislative language and its immediate impact was provided by Larry Barnett of AB Management Associates who explained that the DOT is required to implement upgrades to the U.S. Loran-C service and to provide a plan for the continued operation of Loran-C beyond the year 2000. This theme was picked up by Elisabeth Carpenter of the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (VNTSC) in her presentation of "What to Expect in the 1996 Federal Radionavigation Plan (FRP)." It was stated that the 1996 FRP would continue to state a phase-out date of the year 2000 for Loran-C, but that there would be recognition of the Congressional legislation.

Advances in Loran-C receiver and antenna technology were presented during the technical session and of particular interest was the development work being performed at Megapulse on an H-Field loop antenna that showed impressive results receiving signals in urban environments. In locations where neither GPS or a Loran-C whip antenna could receive signals, the combination of GPS and Loran-C using the loop antenna showed few signal outages.

The work being performed at Delft University in The Netherlands on a system to provide both GPS and GLONASS differential corrections using Loran-C as the communication medium was reported by Durk van Willigen and his associates. The ability to cover large areas of land mass with minimal additional cost is receiving substantial interest in Europe where Loran-C is written into the European Radionavigation Plan as a component of the future mix of systems.

Two papers were presented by user organizations representing close to a million Loran-C users. Both Margot Brown of the National Federation of Boat Owners and Terry Pearsall standing in for Doug Helton of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association recognized the utility of GPS but strongly endorsed the retention of Loran-C with a transition time to GPS as stated in the 1992 FRP or until GPS as a sole-means radionavigation system has been proven.

The debate of the motion "Despite documents and statements to the contrary, this House foresees that Loran-C will remain in full operation in the United States after the year 2000" resulted in a unanimous vote in favor of the motion with one abstention suggesting that the People may have a better insight as to the future of Loran-C than the Government.

At the banquet the award of the Medal of Merit, the highest award of the Association, was made to Durk van Willigen for both his contribution to Loran-C technological advances and to his professorial work teaching and nurturing graduate students to be contributors in their own right. Not to mention the Banquet speech given by Dr. David Last of the University of Wales would be unforgivable. A humorous homily on the "Silver Goose and the Golden Egg" had the guests in stitches and must go down in history as one of the best prepared and delivered of all ILA (WGA) after dinner presentations.

The Convention concluded with a session devoted to the development of a Resolution that put into writing the deliberations of the Convention and the sentiments expressed by the participants. The Resolution finally approved is given at the end of this report.

Convention Proceedings will become available early in the New Year.

The next ILA Convention will be hosted by the Canadian Coast Guard and chaired by Dave Waters to be held in Ottawa during the week of October 6, 1997. One of the highlights of the Convention will be a presentation about the Canadian Loran-C automated transmitter operations showing the substantial decrease in annual operating cost by the reduction of on-site personnel.