Lorans
by Capt. Dan Berg

Loran is an acronym for Long Range Aid to Navigation. Lorans utilize radio waves transmitted at close to right angles to triangulate a vessels position. These units have been in service since the early 1970's. They work very well and are extremely repeatable if aboard the same vessel. That means if you take a set of loran #'s  to mark a shipwreck or other object you can return to the exact spot very easily. If however you bring those same coordinates aboard someone else's boat you will get back to the spot but you might have to search around a bit. The one major problem with Loran's is that the government keeps threatening to discontinue transmissions. They have been saying this for years but eventually Im sure it will happen. What I do is use the best of both worlds. I have a loran aboard for running down any of the hundreds of wreck locations given to me over the years. I also have a new GPS unit aboard and convert all locations to GPS coordinates. This way if and when big brothers shuts down the radio transmissions I can still find my favorite offshore fishing and diving sites.

On this web page you will find links to a variety of Loran manufacturers. They are not as readily available anymore so I would suggest buying one asap. Most manufacturers will be eliminating them from future catalogs.

Lorans  

Furuno , Koden , Sitex