[time-nuts] Loran in the US

[Jim Lux]

On 3/5/12 6:19 AM, Charles P. Steinmetz wrote:
> Poul-Henning wrote:
>
>> Thats why some people in the military is looking into a modern
>> more lightweight version of "Tactical Loran" for use when GPS is jammed.
>
> That is a much easier thing -- our military/intelligence complex
> (however oxymoronic that notion is) tries very hard to keep its
> engagements well away from US soil, so (i) no regulatory approval is
> required


As someone who deals with non-FCC regulatory approval on a fairly 
frequent basis, I can tell you it's not quite that simple.  If you're 
the US government, you're regulated by NTIA, which works much like FCC 
for licensing.  You have to tell where and when and what sort of 
emissions, where and when and what sort of receivers, get permission, etc.

And if you're planning on operating outside the US, that gets 
coordinated via some ITU process.

This is a HUGE problem for the plethora of colleges, businesses, and 
government labs and research institutions jumping on the nanosat and 
cubesat bandwagon. Their operations don't really fit within the "amateur 
radio" bucket, where licensing is fairly easy.



  and (ii) the geographic area of the operating theater is
> usually far smaller than the size of the US. So, we may very well see
> the development of mobile beacons for military deployment in hostile
> areas, but I very much doubt that we will ever see another terrestrial
> beacon system in the US.
>

Perhaps not a unified one, but I can see a variety of proprietary or 
private locating networks being set up.  Surveyors already have high 
accuracy reference networks.  Some are state run, but others are run by 
consortiums or private parties.  20 years ago, you used to be able to 
subscribe to a private service that would give you differential 
corrections for GPS via a FM broadcast subcarrier or pager.