Anyone know if the common LORAN sets found in many small aircraft are readily useable in boats?
I have no idea what voltage small planes use. Most boats have 12v available to hook to.
Beyond that issue, I see marine LORANs generally have a numeric touchpad screen, presumably for entering LAT/LONG. A number of the pictures of LORAN sets for small planes I see don't appear to have these.
Just curiosu if they're transplantable.
available
LORAN
with GPS so readily and cheaply available i would foresee LORAN going away for marine use.
The voltage in small planes is 12 volts. The voltage in slightly bigger small planes is 24 volts. So it seems that you have to specify what kind (model) of plane before you can determine the voltage. And No I don't have the data for any particular model of airplane. By the way I had a small plane with no electrical system, other than the engine magneto :-)
Good luck.
Bill K7NOM
I was systems engineer for TI when they made both aircraft and marine LORAN sets. If you remember, Texas Instruments was the first to qualify LORAN for aircraft.........
Aircraft sets are more expensive since they have a number of features that are automatic, with the assumption that the aircraft pilot has enough to do and doesn't need to look up stuff in manuals or press buttons..... Aircraft LORAN sets, from any manufacturer are much better....
If you have an aircraft LORAN, it will normally be very good in a boat.
Boats, which sail in small areas, have fixed tuned filters in the receiver to reject interference that messes up the signal. They are normally tuned by the dealer/shop before sale, to that particular ares, such as San Francisco, or New York harbor.... etc.
Aircraft LORAN assume that the plane will be flying over larger distances and will tune in and tune out many many many interferers during a flight. The filters are automatic, ----- that's the way I did them in the TI LORAN...
So go ahead and give it a shot in your boat.... You will be way ahead of the game, normally.
But, one of the posters is absolutely correct. LORAN is obsolete compared to GPS.
Even the cheapest GPS available ( I got one from WalMart for $75 last year), will do circles around a LORAN for accuracy, speed of calculation, cost, power consumed, and anything else you can name....
My personal opinion is that your LORAN set should be made into a nice lamp, to leave to your grandchildren.
Andy (retired electronics design engineer )
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