Sometime yesterday the US Coast Guard began shutting down the once ubiquitous WWII-era navigation system well-known to anyone with a big boat: LORAN C. LORAN is a network of ground-based timing relay towers that has provided navigation for ships crossing the Atlantic for many years.
LORAN's demise is of course related to that OTHER navigation technology called GPS. GPS is satellite-based, reliable, and worldwide. It's used by all ships, airplanes, and millions of other vehicles. Now that everyone and their grandmother has GPS, LORAN's aging technology seems to be an expensive waste of effort. There are some who say that LORAN is still worth the price, if only as a backup to the GPS system, but in this age of heavy cost-cutting, that argument didn't stand.
So, starting yesterday those big LORAN devices you used to see on top of luxury yachts are well on their way to extinction.
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