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Published On: Sep 16, 2005 07:13 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Sep 16, 2005 07:13 AM
LORAN Station Searchlight
In March 2004 I had the pleasure of spending
about a week at Nevada's only Coast Guard facility. The U.S. Coast Guard
operates a navigation system called LORAN which requires several large
transmitter facilities in inland locations. This site has four large towers
(each about a 1000 feet tall) in a rectangular pattern and a large antenna wire
strung between them. The Coast Guard was building a new transmitter and building
so I performed a tortoise clearance around the building and supervised the
construction of a tortoise-proof fence so I wouldn't have a job during
construction. The station Chief pointed out a large hole under the concrete slab
where the antenna comes out of the building and I confidently said it "didn't
look very tortoise friendly" to me.
Two hours later I was showing the Chief and the Coast Guardsmen the tortoise inhabiting the hole. Oops. Luckily, the tortoise moved away on his own and didn't have to be relocated when the fence was finished. In the mean time, I got a great tour of the facility and I marveled at the huge water cooled vacuum tubes the size of pineapples. They have to be rebuilt when they burn out at a cost of several thousand dollars each. This is probably why the Coast Guard is building a solid state facility. My parents even came out one day on the way to Quarzite and got a tour.
Why, you may ask, with GPS receivers being cheap and easy to operate, do we spend money on LORAN? Just a few years ago, the government was going to shut down LORAN. Remember the huge antenna (you can see the towers with white flashing anti-collision lights) on US-95 between Searchlight and the Laughlin turn-off). Big towers = long antenna = long wavelength = WORKS in congested areas and around obstacles. GPS requires a good view of the sky with its short wavelength line-of-sight capabilities. Besides, it is good to have some redundancy. The case for LORAN.
Two hours later I was showing the Chief and the Coast Guardsmen the tortoise inhabiting the hole. Oops. Luckily, the tortoise moved away on his own and didn't have to be relocated when the fence was finished. In the mean time, I got a great tour of the facility and I marveled at the huge water cooled vacuum tubes the size of pineapples. They have to be rebuilt when they burn out at a cost of several thousand dollars each. This is probably why the Coast Guard is building a solid state facility. My parents even came out one day on the way to Quarzite and got a tour.
Why, you may ask, with GPS receivers being cheap and easy to operate, do we spend money on LORAN? Just a few years ago, the government was going to shut down LORAN. Remember the huge antenna (you can see the towers with white flashing anti-collision lights) on US-95 between Searchlight and the Laughlin turn-off). Big towers = long antenna = long wavelength = WORKS in congested areas and around obstacles. GPS requires a good view of the sky with its short wavelength line-of-sight capabilities. Besides, it is good to have some redundancy. The case for LORAN.
Posted: Mon - April 4, 2005 at 04:55 PM