NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Susceptibility of GPS to CME, Rationale for CN?
From: Peter Monta
Date: 2018 Sep 30, 15:21 -0700
From: Peter Monta
Date: 2018 Sep 30, 15:21 -0700
Hi David,
I agree with what you say, but just to nitpick a tiny bit:
Have an alternative to GNSS by all means, but choose one which will be viable to most users most of the time, not just in choice locations like the Arizona Desert or with star trackers which can work though cloud.
I wonder if we're already there with the star trackers. Can the little FLIR units that attach to your phone see the Sun (and horizon) in all weather? What would it take to have a truly all-weather sextant, in terms of wavelength? I'm guessing that something in the mid- or far-infrared, or worst-case millimeter wave, is going to suffice. And before the complaints that this is all high-tech, well, yes, a GNSS receiver is comparably high-tech.
A good question to ask in this particular situation is how might e-Loran be affected by intense solar events?
I don't know for sure, but I guess it would be much less affected. The ground wave would be unaffected by what's happening in the ionosphere. The useful range of Loran might be a little decreased, since you wouldn't have the skywave, but the skywave is less accurate anyway.
Cheers,
Peter
