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"....It looks like that one-body fix problem again.  John Karl and I gave 
formal solutions to this a few months ago.  I don't know of any historical 
reference actually giving such a solution.  That is certainly because the 
method is rather impractical, so it is never used and described...." 
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There was a practical one-body fix device that I know of.  It was probably 
very expensive indeed so was not taken beyond evaluation stage I believe.

The US Navy in the 1960s developed a celestial radio source tracker which gave 
continuous position fix using both azimuth and altitude tracking with an 
early computer used for the calculation. I suspect the advent of digital 
computers might have stimulated the development of this kit as an exercise to 
see if it could be done. It would have been very difficult with analogue 
electro- mechanical resolvers prior to this.

It was a large piece of equipment with a dish of about 1&1/2 Metre diameter.  
It was not developed further than evaluation stage I believe.   In effect it 
was a miniature, accurately tracking, radio observatory sat on the deck of a 
ship. 

I cannot remember but think it used the Sun as a primary source and possibly 
Jupiter. The detail of the radio detection required in terms of sensitivity 
and obtaining good resolution was very interesting I recall. 
 
I have seen reference to this equipment in the Journal of the Royal Institute 
of Navigation including a picture, but cannot immediately find it to give a 
better reference.

Douglas Denny.
Chichester.  England.

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