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.

"RB" wrote in message
. ..
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.



with GPS so readily and cheaply available i would foresee LORAN going away
for marine use.

RB wrote:

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.




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

Andy writes:

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 )