The ILA Perspective - December 2004

Several important events have transpired since the September ILA Perspective, and Loran continues to make rapid and positive progress throughout the world.

First Asian Venue for ILA Annual Meeting

For the first time, the ILA held a meeting in Asia. ILA33 took place at the end of October in Tokyo, under the superb organization of Mr. Tamotsu Ikeda and his colleagues. The meeting was a great success, and included an introductory session on enhanced or eLoran, the first eLoran tutorial covering user equipment, propagation, and system/signal issues. This meeting served to broaden and strengthen ILA relationships, and was an important step to expanded international participation in the ILA. With interest in Loran growing, during meeting discussions it became quite clear that the upcoming US Loran decision will have a profound impact in Asia. Member nations of the Far East Radionavigation System (FERNS) group (Japan, Korea, Peoples Republic of China, and Russia) are hoping this long-awaited policy statement is issued shortly.

Loran Expansion in Europe

Loran continues to make progress in Europe as well. The UK's national standards laboratory, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), has conducted successful Loran time and frequency studies recently and, in a paper presented at the RIN NAV04 conference, demonstrated Loran can easily meet the required performance standards. Trinity House in the UK is working on a trial service of Loran transmissions from the existing radio station at Rugby, England, and they expect to be on air in early 2005. The Rugby station is run by BT Global Services, and this project reuses former LF/VLF assets. The project is being implemented within the Northwest European Loran System (NELS). The Rugby signal will provide high quality timing service over the UK and improve Loran performance over much of Europe.

Loran Modernization Continues in the US and the Loran Technical Evaluation is Released

In the United States, Loran has recently made two major steps forward. First, the US Congress has approved an additional $22.5 M to continue the Loran modernization process in 2005, so the total now appropriated stands at approximately $140 M. As I indicated in the September update and validated by the latest appropriations, Congressional support for Loran remains strong and bipartisan.

The second major event is the release of the Loran technical evaluation report, entitled “Loran’s Capability to Mitigate the Impact of a GPS Outage on GPS Position, Navigation, and Time Applications,” which was turned over to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) in March. A highly regarded team of government, academic, and industry experts performed this evaluation, and it is undoubtedly the most rigorous and complete study of Loran ever performed. In a PowerPoint presentation that accompanies the report, a summary slide states: “Both the technical evaluation and benefit/cost study strongly support maintaining a modernized Loran-C system as a part of the mix of radionavigation systems provided by the US government.”

New US GPS Policy

On December 8, President Bush authorized a new US GPS policy that will undoubtedly have profound ramifications. The policy identifies the growing dependence on GPS for position, navigation, and timing applications and provides a mandate to federal departments and agencies regarding how to make the US critical infrastructure more robust. The policy directs the identified departments and agencies to cooperate in addressing this vital issue and establishes an organizational structure to ensure that cooperation. The ILA welcomes this important new policy and will do everything we can to support its goals. We believe Loran has a well-deserved place as a multimodal backup to GPS, and reference the positive Loran technical evaluation cited above.

US Loran Decision

As summarized, Loran continues to move forward around the world, and it is widely acknowledged that Loran is the best complement to GNSS systems for a variety of technical, economic, and political reasons. Because the technical and economic Loran studies in the US were positive, and because they were intended to form the basis of a policy decision, the long-awaited US decision is expected shortly. Given the ongoing activity and interest in Loran, it is clear that many governments, numerous user and professional groups, and the entire the international radionavigation community look forward to a positive policy announcement.

G. Linn Roth, Ph.D., FRIN
President