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Loran beacons are still working and I assume they still will be in 2011. They're ground based and are quite reliable to within a few meters. This will cause about as much havoc as Y2K did, aka not much at all.

LORAN is in the process of a rather impressive upgrade under the current proposal. Stunning accuracy for 100KHz signal. To contain massive data in the pulse "manipulations". All with land-based unmanned XMTR stations that won't be the expected 1st thing taken out in a heavy conflict, like most of the GPS birds will most certainly be. Portables stations can be reset in hours instead of years to put up a new sat. Not line of sight, 100KHz is. Cheap, reliable, accurate, rapid XMTR replenishment, backup nav.

I hope the USCG approves it or the DOD picks it up.

LORAN is in the process of a rather impressive upgrade under the current proposal

I heard something about this last fall. Isn't it strange how quickly things change, I can remember about eight or so years ago when the plans were on the table to phase out LORAN by 2000, then it got extended to 2005 and then all of a sudden bam it's being upgraded.

My friend's dad captains a charter boat out of P-Town, we call him Cptn. Nasty, and he say's the Afgan and Iraq war is the reason, that some military ships experienced problems with there GPS equipment and used LORAN as a backup and it got the job done.

He has both systems on his boat, he prefers GPS only because it's compatable with the Rutgers thermal NAV charts in real time.

LORAN is in the process of a rather impressive upgrade under the current proposal. Stunning accuracy for 100KHz signal. To contain massive data in the pulse "manipulations". All with land-based unmanned XMTR stations that won't be the expected 1st thing taken out in a heavy conflict, like most of the GPS birds will most certainly be. Portables stations can be reset in hours instead of years to put up a new sat. Not line of sight, 100KHz is. Cheap, reliable, accurate, rapid XMTR replenishment, backup nav.

I hope the USCG approves it or the DOD picks it up.

I also remember when they had the Omega navigation system that ran from 9 to 16 kilocycles, very longwave signals but that was phased out several years ago. I remember when I was a kid, they also used Loran-A in the 1900 kilocycle range, just above the AM band into the 160 meter amateur radio band and many amateurs that were near the coasts had power and frequency restrictions on the use of the 160 meter band because of it. I remember Loran-A's raspy buzz that can via skip every night when I tuned my shortwave radio. I think they finally put it out to pasture around 1982 or 1983. Come to think of it, I think the sound effect for "The Hypnotoad" in "Futurama" when he turned on his hyponsis was the sound from the Loran'A's signal or at least it sure sounds like that. I've been scouring the Web for a recording of Loran-A to no avail.