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LORAN (Long Range Navigation)
LORAN is a radio-based navigational aid first
used during World War II to locate ships and planes
with greater accuracy than could be achieved with
conventional techniques.

LORAN determines location by comparing

accurately-synchronized powerful radio pulses
originating from different reference transmitter sites.
THE PRINCIPLE OF LORAN
 Each coordinated LORAN transmitter sends out a
continuous succession of sharp radio pulses.

 LORAN uses radio signals that travel a distance

of almost exactly 984 ft (300 m) a microsecond.

 Atleast three different LORAN signals must be

received to determine latitude and longitude.
INTERPRETING LORAN MEASUREMENTS

 Early LORAN operation required the use of a previously-

prepared map, covered with curved lines that corresponded to
various distance differences from sets of received signal
sources. The early LORAN devices indicated which map lines to
use, the operator found the point on the map where the lines
intersected to learn the location.
The latest versions of LORAN C receivers no longer require the
use of a special map to determine location. These updated units
contain a more sophisticated computer that calculates longitude
and latitude directly, displaying in a format that does not need
interpretation.
The LORAN C receiver automatically tunes first one then
another and another of as many LORAN signals that can be
received well enough to provide good data.
INTERPRETING LORAN MEASUREMENTS

A sample Loran chart

showing the location of
a master and two slave
stations. Also shown are
station identifiers and
time differences on the
curves. (Graphic
courtesy of Electronic
Communications).
 LIMITATIONS

LORAN suffers from electronic effects of weather and the ionospheric effects of
sunrise and sunset. The most accurate signal is the groundwave that follows the
Earth's surface, ideally over seawater. At night the indirect skywave, bent back to
the surface by the ionosphere, is a problem as multiple signals may arrive via
different paths (multipath interference). The ionosphere's reaction to sunrise and
sunset accounts for the particular disturbance during those periods.
Magnetic storms have serious effects as with any radio based system.
LORAN uses ground based transmitters that only cover certain regions.
LORAN SECURITY

 Because the LORAN program was

a secret during WWII,  a security
concept was applied whereby each
station was designated with a letter so
not to reveal the transmitter location
in case any of the Loran charts/tables
should fall into enemy hands.
Loran stations also had Unit
designators. The Unit number (i.e.
Unit 10 for Nantucket) was used  for
issuing orders to personnel assigned
to a station and all correspondence
with the goal in mind of  not revealing
the transmitter location.
There were other designators used
post war. This Loran-A chart shows the WWII era letter designations used by two US
East coast stations. Station 'C' is Folly Beach and 'H' is Bodie Island. Click
to enlarge. (Chart provided by Bill Dietz, Loran A History web site ) 
3 DISTINCT PHASES OF LORAN
 LORAN A
 LORAN B
 LORAN C

OTHER PHASES OF LORAN

 LORAN D
 eLORAN
 LORAN F
LORAN A
Loran-A operated in the 1850 to 1950 kHz band,
used pulse-time difference as its operating principle
and generally speaking had a day/night range of
about 800 to 1600 nm depending on whose
reference you read.
PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION

 Loran provided facilities whereby ships and aircraft derived their

position at long distances. The system required at least three
transmitting stations for each 'chain', and the observer used a
special Loran receiver. A chain consisted of one master and two
slave stations. Differences in the arrival time of pulses from a pair
of stations was measured and displayed on the face of a cathode
ray tube. Each fix required two observations and the operation
normally took about five minutes. The readings were then
transposed to a Loran lattice chart and position could be plotted. In
some cases readings were referenced to special Loran tables.
Because Loran-A signals were pulsed and not continuous
transmissions, tremendous peak power levels could be achieved by
a relatively small transmitter. The maximum reliable range for
Loran-A was 700 miles by day and 1,400 miles at night.
 LORAN A EQUIPMENT

AN/APN-9 Loran 'A' set.

Commercial fishermen also
used these after WW2 until
something better came on the
market. 
LORAN A EQUIPMENT
 LORAN A EQUIPMENT
This is a view of the
now dismantled Coast
Guard Loran 'A'
Station at Cape
Sarichef, Alaska taken
around 1975-76. The
site was located on
Unimak Island, in the
Aleutian Islands.
Access  to the isolated
island was by aircraft
or helicopter only.
LORAN A EQUIPMENT

The model DAS-2 was

a popular Loran-A
receiver
LORAN A EQUIPMENT

 DAS-3 receiver fitted aboard HMCS HAIDA DAS-3 receiver

in 1946
LORAN A EQUIPMENT

Canadian Loran A station at Cape Christian,

Baffin Island 70,32N 68,18W. It was the slave
station for rates 2S6 and 2S7 and operated from
1954 to 1976. 
This was a typical USCG Loran-A station in the SW Pacific. Generally speaking,
Loran-A had an average expected accuracy of 1 percent of the distance between the
navigator and the stations according to the U.S. Coast Guard in 1949.
SIGNAL CHARACTERISTICS

 Each transmission pulse lasted about 40 microseconds and

reoccurred at regular, accurately controlled intervals. This interval,
called the Pulse Repetition Interval (P.R.I.) varied for each station and
lasted between 29,000 and 40,000 µs. The transmissions of
corresponding master and slave pulses were separated by a fixed time
interval which consisted of the time for a signal to travel from the
master to the slave, plus one-half the P.R.I., plus an additional small
time called the 'coding delay'.

  
SIGNAL CHARACTERISTICS

 In the measuring process, the

time difference was always
measured from the master pulse to
the slave pulse, and the time delay
of one half of the pulse recurrence
interval was automatically
removed. The lines of constant
time difference for each pair of
stations were pre-computed,
taking into consideration the
curvature and eccentricity of the
Earth, the time for the master
pulse to reach the slave station,
and the coding delay. These
"hyperbolic" lines were made
available in the form of
overprinted charts and tables.
In an attempt to gain longer-range navigation, a variant of Loran-A was
developed. It was known as SS (sky-wave-synchronized) Loran  In the SS
Loran system, the slave station of a pair was synchronized by a sky-wave
pulse reflected from the 'E' layer, rather than by the ground wave as in
standard Loran. This allowed the master and slave stations to be separated
by as much as 1000 to 1200 miles. The Loran charts were calibrated in
terms of sky waves, instead of ground waves, so that correction factors were
unnecessary when sky waves were used. A disadvantage of the system was
encountered when the indicator was located close to either or both stations,
since erratic reception resulted when the angle of reflection of the sky wave
from the.E layer approached the critical angle. As the critical angle was
approached, the radio waves exhibited increasing penetrating power and
would go entirely or part way through the 'E' layer. 
THE END OF LORAN-A

 The accuracy of Loran-A varied according to

location, time of day, weather and relative geometry of
transmitting stations. Aside from some testing by the
USCG, the follow-on system Loran-B, never made it as
a commercial system of navigation due to technical
problems. It was eventually surpassed by Loran-C
which provided longer range, greater accuracy when it
first came into operation in 1957. Loran-A was phased
out in December 1980 in North America and most of the
world by 1985. In 1995, there were still a number of
chains operating in China.and Japan
LORAN B
 Loran-B, designed only for ships, was operated experimentally at the
USCG Electronics Engineering Center (EECen), and its predecessor, the
USCG Test Station in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland from approximately
1948 to 1955.  The unique feature of Loran-B was that, although it
operated on the same frequencies as Loran-A, the timing control and the
timing measurements were made on the pulse carrier, after cycle
identification from the pulse envelope.  The process made for very precise
timing measurements.  However, at the land-sea interface, there was
considerable phase distortion. 
Phase comparison increased accuracy to about half a cycle, (about 0.25
microsecond) a considerable improvement. Another new feature of the
system had the transmitters operating in chains instead of pairs, thus
allowing simultaneous measurement of two time differences.
LORAN D
 LORAN D was a short range, high accuracy, low power, tactical
system designed for use as a bombing aid by the United States Air
Force. It used "portable" transmitters and much shorter baselines
than Loran- C, plus a sixteen pulse transmission instead of eight.
Loran-D modified the Loran-C pulse pattern by interleaving an
additional 8 pulses after each pulse of the current Loran-C pulse
pattern. To interleave the additional pulses within the standard
group interval, Loran-D used a modulation scheme known as
Supernumary Interpulse Modulation (SIM).
eLORAN
Enhanced Loran or eLoran is a Loran system that
incorporates the latest receiver, antenna, and
transmission system technology to enable Loran to serve
as a back-up to, and complement global navigation
satellite systems (GNSS) for navigation and timing. This
new technology provides substantially enhanced
performance beyond what was possible with Loran-C,
eLoran’s predecessor.
LORAN F
 At the same time that the U.S. Air Force was developing
Loran-D, Motorola experimented with the Multi-User Tactical
Navigation Systems (MUTNS), a continuously pulsed
pseudorandom coded low frequency navigation system used for
drone control. It was sometimes referred tAQo as Loran-F in
proposals but this was not an official designator. Loran-D came
out ahead during system evaluations, therefore no further work
was done on MUTNS.
LORAN C
The Loran-C navigation signal is a carefully structured
sequence of brief radio frequency pulses (Fig. 1a) on a carrier
wave centered at 100 kHz. All secondary stations radiate
pulses in  bursts of eight, whereas the Master signal, for
identification purposes, has an additional ninth pulse burst
(Fig. 1b). The sequence of signal transmissions consists of a
pulse group from the Master (M) station followed at precise
time intervals by pulse groups from the secondary stations.
The time interval between the reoccurrence of the Master
pulse is called the Group Repetition Interval (GRI), see Fig.
1c. Each Loran-C chain has a unique GRI. 
Since all Loran-C  transmitters operate on the same frequency, the GRI
is the key by which a  receiver can identify and isolate signal groups
from a specific chain.
GRI's are chosen on the basis of :

(a) Baseline lengths between master and secondaries. If  the distance between the 
     master and first secondary is say 1000 kms, the radio signal will take 33,000 
     microseconds to get to the slave so the GRI cannot possibly be less than that.
(b) Number of slaves that have to be accomodated - they all have to have delays so 
      that there is no possibility of them crossing over anywhere in coverage area.
(c) Geography. 
(d) Other nearby chains witrh consideration given to interference. 
(e) Skywave cross-rate interference. 
(f) Duty cycle of the transmitters - a faster GRI means the average power of
the transmitted signal is higher so the final stage in the transmitter requires
more cooling. With average baseline lengths and three slaves, the minimum GRI
cannot be much less than 50,000 microseconds. 
Each Loran-C pulse has an
approximate duration of
200 µs. The interval
between pulses within a
pulse group is 1000 µs,  This graphic illustrates the points on the Loran-
except for the last two C pulse envelope that define the start time, the
pulses at the Master which time of maximum envelope power and the stop
have a 2000 µs interval. time of the pulse
The graphic below
illustrates one pulse
LORAN C RECEIVERS

T.I. 9000 Loran- C Receiver 

Antenna for 9000 receiver

LORAN C TRANSMITTER

Here is an example of a current (2001), state-of-the-art solid state

Loran-C transmitter. This is the Model A6500 manufactured by
Megapulse Inc 
LORAN - After Loran C

A relatively new development in electronically-supported navigation

systems, the Global Position Satellite system, seems destined to
replace LORAN C. During the years from 1978 through 1995 the
United States launched more than two dozen specialized navigational
satellites that each orbit the earth twice every day. These satellites
transmit data that permit even portable handheld receivers and
decoders to display latitude and longitude with great accuracy. The
Global Positioning Satellite system provides better information than
can be achieved using LORAN so it seems likely that the GPS system
will soon render the LORAN system obsolete. LORAN will someday
be found only in the history of electronics-based navigational systems
but it will have served the world well for better than a half century.
The end…

Thank you…