The latter was in control of the North Atlantic East Coast Chain forming links with Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
Then, in 1998, complete control of Canada’s network rested in St. Anthony when it was upgraded to become the system’s control monitor station.
Three Newfoundland and Labrador transmission stations — Fox Harbour, Comfort Cove and Cape Race — and two further stations in British Columbia, along with a series of Primary Chain Monitor Sites, were all remotely channelled into St. Anthony to control the entire north Atlantic.
“There wasn’t much objection to shutting it down at all,” Mr. Kelly said.
“I was talking to US Coast Guard after they shut down in February and while there was some opposition it wasn’t major or critical considering it was no longer being used by the people it was designed for.
“It was being looked at by USCG to modernize to the system to eLoran, but that would have required a lot of modifications.
“The availability of equipment makes it obsolete, most people have a GPS.”
eLoran, or Enhanced LORAN, uses advancements in receiver design and transmission which increases its accuracy and can be used to transmit auxiliary data such as DGPS corrections.
Europe plans to go ahead with the use of eLoran and in 2007 the General Lighthouse Authorities announced it had signed a 15-year deal with the UK Department of Transport “to improve the safety of mariners in the UK and Western Europe” through the use of eLoran.
According to Mr. Kelly, while the death of LORAN-C was always on the cards, the closing ceremony last week was odd.
“It was kind of a strange feeling because most people had spent a life at it but it was kind of understood that it was going to happen,” he said.
“There were previous times when LORAN-C was going to shut down; it always seemed to get a new life.
“The first time there was talk of shutting down LORAN-C was the late 1960s, like I said, it’s gotten an extension on its life a number of times and each time you’ve got in your mind that it is going to happen eventually.
“It had to come.
“It was a strange feeling but we’ll move on.”
Indeed time waits for no man, technology doubly so.
jgraney@northernpen.ca
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