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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and All Love All Things Tech. And

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Speaker 1: in my recent episode profile of alfred Ley Loomis, if

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Speaker 1: you haven't listened to that one it published last weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: check that out. I mentioned that Loomis was instrumental in

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Speaker 1: developing a technology called Lauren l O R A N.

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Speaker 1: And today I'm going to talk about that technology in

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Speaker 1: deeper detail and how it uses mathematics and radio signals

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Speaker 1: to help ships navigate far off the coast, or rather

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Speaker 1: how it used to do that, as the system has

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Speaker 1: since been phased out, but more on that later. I

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Speaker 1: do think that Lauren is pretty cool, and it does

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Speaker 1: give me a chance to talk about mathematics a little

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Speaker 1: bit now, as we'll discuss in this episode. I won't

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Speaker 1: go into incredible detail mathematically speaking, because it involves things

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Speaker 1: like hyperbolas, which are way easier to talk about with

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Speaker 1: the use of visual aids. However, first I should give

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Speaker 1: some background on laur Anne. In the nineteen forties, there

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Speaker 1: was no such thing as the Global Positioning System or GPS.

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Speaker 1: You could not turn on a computing device and activate

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Speaker 1: a helpful little app to see where you were on

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Speaker 1: the globe. No one had invented a rocket capable of

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Speaker 1: reaching orbit, let alone put a satellite out in space

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Speaker 1: at that point. Yet there was a need for reliable

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Speaker 1: navigation systems for ships and later on for aircraft. This

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Speaker 1: need was made more urgent when the Second World War began.

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Speaker 1: So you had different systems that were already in place,

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Speaker 1: but many of them relied upon the elements things like

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Speaker 1: seeing where the sun was and making measurements using something

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Speaker 1: like a sextant. You had ships even leading up into

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Speaker 1: World War Two that we're dependent upon these kind of systems,

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Speaker 1: and for commercial ships that didn't have the benefit of

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Speaker 1: military technology, this lasted even longer, and that was not

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Speaker 1: ideal by n It seemed the question wasn't if the

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Speaker 1: United States was going to be pulled into the Second

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Speaker 1: World War, but rather when. Because of this impending threat,

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Speaker 1: several important people urged President Franklin Roosevelt to form a

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Speaker 1: Special Scientific Council to head research and development projects in

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Speaker 1: science and technology that could be useful during wartime. Among

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Speaker 1: these people were Vanavar Bush, who served as scientific advisor

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Speaker 1: to the President. James Knant, who was president of Harvard

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Speaker 1: at the time, and Carl Compton, who was president of

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Speaker 1: m I. T. Roosevelt approved the plan, and the National

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Speaker 1: Defense Research Council, or in d r C was born.

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Speaker 1: The council looked at different technologies for detecting aircraft, often ships,

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Speaker 1: and decided that microwaves were the most promising. Lead Carl

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Speaker 1: Compton reached out to Alfred Lee Loomis to head up

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Speaker 1: a special committee called the Microwave Committee to look into

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Speaker 1: the matter. Loomis and his team determined that microwaves could

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Speaker 1: be ideal for a detecting aircraft, but that the US

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Speaker 1: had no technology capable of emitting microwaves in the frequency

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Speaker 1: range they desired and enough power to work properly. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: in Great Britain, scientists had developed a magnetron capable of

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Speaker 1: creating powerful microwaves in those frequencies. Great Britain sent a

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Speaker 1: group of scientists to the United States to try and

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Speaker 1: develop a radar system that could take advantage of this technology.

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Speaker 1: Sir Henry Tizard and his team brought over a cavity

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Speaker 1: magnetron and Loomis invited the UK scientists to meet with

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Speaker 1: the Microwave Committee. The committee convinced Compton to set aside

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Speaker 1: a space at m I T for research and development

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Speaker 1: with microwaves, and the m I T Radiation Laboratory or

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Speaker 1: rad Lab was born. Now, the reason they chose the

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Speaker 1: name Radiation Laboratory was pretty interesting. It was all a

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Speaker 1: matter of deception of misdirection. The lab did not want

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Speaker 1: anyone associated with the Access powers to find out what

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Speaker 1: they were working on, so the Allies could maintain an

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Speaker 1: advantage during the war, especially when it came to navigation

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Speaker 1: and detection of aircraft and other vessels. So to that

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Speaker 1: end they chose the name Radiation Laboratory for a siwhat

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Speaker 1: paradoxical reason, or at least in retrospect, it seems paradoxical.

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Speaker 1: It made it sound as though the lab was investigating

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Speaker 1: nuclear science, as in things like nuclear power and potentially

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Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb. Not At the time, the prevailing feeling

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Speaker 1: was that nuclear science was such a young discipline that

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Speaker 1: would take too long to make any advances in the

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Speaker 1: field that could possibly have an effect during the war,

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Speaker 1: and and so they chose to disguise their efforts to

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Speaker 1: advance radar technology by claiming to be a nuclear science lab,

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Speaker 1: which I think is pretty wild, especially when you consider

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Speaker 1: that the actual end of World War Two would be

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Speaker 1: in large part due to the development of nuclear weapons.

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Speaker 1: The lab made significant contributions to science and technology, with

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Speaker 1: numerous practical applications. Among them was the Long Range Navigation

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Speaker 1: System or LAUREN. Now, the story of LAUREN really gets

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Speaker 1: going on October first, nineteen forty, when the Army Signal

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Speaker 1: Technical Committee met to create requirements for what it called

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Speaker 1: a precision navigational equipment for guiding airplanes. The committee was

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Speaker 1: asking for a means to provide navigational assistance from a

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Speaker 1: distance of five hundred miles, a flight ceiling of thirty

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Speaker 1: five thousand feet, and inaccuracy of within one thousand feet

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Speaker 1: at two hundred miles out. In other words, a planes

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Speaker 1: navigator should be able to determine the planes position within

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Speaker 1: one thousand feet of its act tool position while still

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Speaker 1: two hundred miles out from the radio transmitters that are

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Speaker 1: beaming signals to the plane. Alfred Lee Loomis had a

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Speaker 1: proposal to meet these requirements. He thought that this would

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Speaker 1: originally be used for ships, not for aircraft because it

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Speaker 1: would require building special receivers, and at the time, there

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Speaker 1: wasn't really a practical way of building a receiver small

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Speaker 1: enough to fit on an aircraft, which already had a

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Speaker 1: pretty strict limit on how much weight and how much

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Speaker 1: space was available in them. Loomis had a clever idea

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Speaker 1: that involved pairs of radio transmitting stations sending out synchronized signals.

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Speaker 1: A receiver aboard a ship would pick up these signals,

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Speaker 1: and by measuring the delay between the two signals, you

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Speaker 1: could figure out your basic distance from the two transmitters.

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Speaker 1: With a second pair of transmitters or a third transmitting tower,

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Speaker 1: you could figure out your actual position. And it all

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Speaker 1: had to do with the formulas for hyperbolas, which is

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Speaker 1: why laura and is also known as a hyperbolic navigation system. Now,

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Speaker 1: I know all the mathematicians out there already have a

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Speaker 1: firm grasp of what a hyperbola is, but for some

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Speaker 1: of us we might need some instruction or refresher It's

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Speaker 1: been more than twenty years since I took a mathematics course,

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Speaker 1: and I needed a little reminder for myself. So here

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Speaker 1: we go. Hyperbola is a symmetrical open curve that represents

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Speaker 1: this set of points in a plane whose distances to

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Speaker 1: two fixed points called folk i in that same plane

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Speaker 1: have a constant difference. So by a symmetrical open curve

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Speaker 1: we mean you have two curved lines called branches or

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Speaker 1: connected components. They are symmetrical, so they are mirror images

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Speaker 1: of each other, with the open side of the curves

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Speaker 1: facing outward from each other. They look kind of like

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Speaker 1: infinite bows. As the arms extend out from the center

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Speaker 1: of the hyperbola, which is called the vert vertex the

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Speaker 1: verticey ease of the hyperbola, they become less curved. So

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Speaker 1: the further out the lines go, the more straight they appear.

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Speaker 1: The two fixed points or foci, are each on the

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Speaker 1: inside of one of those curves or branches. Now remember

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Speaker 1: the branches represent a set of points. If you were

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Speaker 1: to select any of those points along one of the curves,

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Speaker 1: you can measure the distance between that point and the

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Speaker 1: two foci. The point will be closer to its own

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Speaker 1: focus than the focus of the other curve, and you

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Speaker 1: subtract one distance from the other and you take the

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Speaker 1: absolute value, meaning you make it a positive value. So

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Speaker 1: if it would have been negative, you change it to

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Speaker 1: a positive You will then find the constant for that hyperbola.

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Speaker 1: If you were to pick any other point on that

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Speaker 1: same curve and repeat this process where you measure the

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Speaker 1: distance between that point and the FOLCA and it's foci

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Speaker 1: and that point and the folk I of the other curve,

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Speaker 1: and then subtract the two, you would still arrive at

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Speaker 1: that same value. That woman, you take the absolute value.

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Speaker 1: The folk I are in a position relative to the curves,

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Speaker 1: so that the difference between the distance of any point

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Speaker 1: on the curves and the folk I will always be

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Speaker 1: the same. The curves thus represent a selection of possible

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Speaker 1: locations from the perspective of the folk I. Now that's

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Speaker 1: the secret behind Lauren. But how well I'll tell you.

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Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So imagine you've got a coastline, and along this coastline

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Speaker 1: you have transmitting towers that are paired together so that

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Speaker 1: they send out a pulse of signals in perfect synchronization.

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Speaker 1: If you were on a boat out at sea equa

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Speaker 1: distant from the two towers, you would receive both sets

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Speaker 1: of signals at exactly the same time. But let's say

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Speaker 1: you're a little closer to Tower A than you are

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Speaker 1: from Tower B. What happens then, Well, Tower A and

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Speaker 1: Tower B send out their signals at exactly the same time.

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Speaker 1: It is synchronized, so you would receive Tower a's signals

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Speaker 1: a little bit earlier than you would receive Tower b's signals.

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Speaker 1: That's because the signals from Tower B have to travel

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Speaker 1: further than the signals from Tower A, and the signals

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Speaker 1: are traveling at a constant rate of speed. So what

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Speaker 1: speed is that, Well, it's the speed of light, because

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Speaker 1: radio waves are electromagnetic radiation, as is light now in

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Speaker 1: our atmosphere, because light does travel at different speeds through

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Speaker 1: different media. In the vacuum of space, it's one speed.

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Speaker 1: But in our atmosphere light travels at two thousand seven

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Speaker 1: kilometers per second. I'm really going to focus on kilometers

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Speaker 1: for this. It makes it easier in the long run.

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Speaker 1: So it's not like there would be a long delay

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Speaker 1: between the two incoming signals. I mean that that speed.

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Speaker 1: Unless you are really far away, you wouldn't be able

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Speaker 1: to have a massive delay between the two. And if

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Speaker 1: you were really far away, you wouldn't be able to

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Speaker 1: pick up the signals in the first place. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a delay that's measurable in micro seconds,

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Speaker 1: but with a Loran receiver that's long enough to do

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Speaker 1: some serious calculations. Now, the two towers that are transmitting

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Speaker 1: represent the foci of a hyperbola. So you're on this

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Speaker 1: boat and your receiver picks up that you're getting the

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Speaker 1: signals from Tower A let's say about two hundred micro

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Speaker 1: seconds before you get the signals from tower B, so

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Speaker 1: you are closer to Tower A by a factor of

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Speaker 1: two hundred micro seconds. You also happen to know how

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Speaker 1: far apart Tower A and Tower B R because that's

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Speaker 1: part of the whole system. You have to know the

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Speaker 1: location of the transmitting towers and their distance relative to

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Speaker 1: each other. Otherwise you don't have enough information to make

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Speaker 1: any important determinations, and that information is freely available to

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Speaker 1: anyone who's part of the Louran system. So you know

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Speaker 1: the physical distance that separates these two folk i from

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Speaker 1: each other along the coast. Using those pieces of information,

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Speaker 1: you can actually plot the hyperbola curves. So let's say

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Speaker 1: the two towers are four kilometers apart. The speed of

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Speaker 1: the radio waves is point to nine nine seven nine

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Speaker 1: two kilometers per micro second, and the difference between the

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Speaker 1: two sets of pulses was two hundred microseconds. We can

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Speaker 1: calculate the constant of this hyperbola by using the equation

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Speaker 1: distance equals rate times time. The rate is the rate

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Speaker 1: of the radio waves that's point to nine nine seven

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Speaker 1: nine two kilometers per microsecond, and the amount of time

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Speaker 1: that passes is two dred microseconds. That gives us fifty

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Speaker 1: nine point nine five eight four kilometers. So let's just

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Speaker 1: round it up. We're gonna call it sixty kilometers. That's

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Speaker 1: your constant. Any point along the hyperbola will have a

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Speaker 1: difference in distances from the two folk i of about

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Speaker 1: sixty kilometers. Now, that still doesn't tell you where you

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Speaker 1: are in relation to anything else. It just tells you

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Speaker 1: the relationship between the difference in distances between the two transmitters. However,

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Speaker 1: knowing the constant gives you enough information to suss out

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Speaker 1: the rest of the equation for the hyperbola. The equation

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Speaker 1: for an east west hyperbola. So if you were to

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Speaker 1: plot this on the old X Y axis, you know,

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Speaker 1: a good old grid, then this would be the ones

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Speaker 1: that would face left and right, a north south hyperbola

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Speaker 1: would face up and down along the y axis as

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Speaker 1: opposed to left and right along the X axis. So

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Speaker 1: when you plot and east west hyperbola on an x

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Speaker 1: y axis, the equation for a hyperbola is X squared

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Speaker 1: divided by A squared minus Y squared divided by B

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Speaker 1: squared equals one. That's your your hyperbola equation. Now, if

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Speaker 1: this were an up down a north south hype perbola,

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Speaker 1: you would actually have Y squared over A squared minus

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Speaker 1: X squared over B squared equals one. Just a little

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Speaker 1: bit of mathematics for you. The A, by the way,

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Speaker 1: represents the vertices. The that would be the the center

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Speaker 1: of the hyperbola. That that point where it has the

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Speaker 1: curve where it curves around the very center of that

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Speaker 1: is the the of Both of those curves are the vertices,

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Speaker 1: and the B represents the covertices. Describing that as a

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Speaker 1: little more tricky without visual aids. So just go with

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Speaker 1: me on this if you want to really understand what

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Speaker 1: this is. There's a video I highly recommend. I found

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Speaker 1: it extremely useful. The video that you can find is

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Speaker 1: on YouTube. I have no connection to the person who

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Speaker 1: makes this video or the company that makes this video.

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Speaker 1: I just found it very useful. The title of the

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Speaker 1: video is applying hyperbola as navigation, and it's by think

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Speaker 1: Well VIDs, and you can see this applied specifically for

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Speaker 1: the purposes of navigation. That even use an example very

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Speaker 1: similar to what I'm talking about, although he uses miles

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Speaker 1: rather than kilometers. Uh. If you check that out, you'll

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Speaker 1: be able to see this in action, and it'll be

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Speaker 1: much easier for you to visualize since I'm working just

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Speaker 1: from an audio format here. The point being that once

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Speaker 1: you figure out the equation for the hyperbola, you can

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Speaker 1: plot out all those points on a map that have

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Speaker 1: this this constant this constant difference of of distances between

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Speaker 1: the two folki. So you get that curved line that

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Speaker 1: represents all of those physical points on the map. We

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Speaker 1: call this the Loran line of position. By itself, that

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Speaker 1: information isn't that useful because you don't know exactly where

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Speaker 1: along that line your position is. You just know that

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Speaker 1: it has to be one of those points. Based on

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Speaker 1: the math, you could be anywhere along that curve. Well,

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Speaker 1: if you're on a boat, you would presumably be anywhere

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Speaker 1: out over the ocean, because if the curve extends out

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Speaker 1: over the land, you probably aren't there if you're in

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Speaker 1: a boat. If you are there, then you don't really

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Speaker 1: need to worry about your position so much, because chances

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Speaker 1: are it's not really changing. Boats don't move well on land.

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Speaker 1: What you need now is either a third tower that's

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Speaker 1: pulsing the same synchronized signal, or, as the original design

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Speaker 1: of Laurent intended, a second pair of transmitting towers. So

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Speaker 1: with a third tower, let's remember our first two towers

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Speaker 1: were Towers A and B. Uh this would be Tower C.

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Speaker 1: You would run the same calculations with regard to the

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Speaker 1: ship and Tower A. That will produce a second hyperbola,

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Speaker 1: one in which the curve of that second hyperbola will

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Speaker 1: intersect with the curve from the first hyperbola. If you

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Speaker 1: were using a second pair of towers, we'll call these

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Speaker 1: towers D and E, you would repeat the process you

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Speaker 1: did for Towers A and B, measuring the difference in

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Speaker 1: time it takes towers Tower D signal to get to

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Speaker 1: you compared to Tower E signal. That would let you

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Speaker 1: plot out a second hyper bluff, and you would still

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Speaker 1: see a second set of points representing your possible location.

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Speaker 1: More importantly, they would intersect with your first set of points,

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Speaker 1: and it's at that intersection where the two lines cross

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Speaker 1: that your location would have to be. That's the only

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Speaker 1: place your ship could be, because the mathematics would tell

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Speaker 1: you that you have to exist along both of these

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Speaker 1: curved lines simultaneously, and they only intersect at one point.

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Speaker 1: That point is your location. So by using a Loran

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Speaker 1: receiver and taking in transmissions from different towers and applying

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Speaker 1: a little math, you can figure out exactly where you

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Speaker 1: are out in the ocean, even if land isn't in

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Speaker 1: sight and the sky is overcast. By sending out these

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Speaker 1: pulses with identify irs, you'll know where you are in

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Speaker 1: relation to where you're headed and can make course corrections

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Speaker 1: and take the measures to pilot your ships safely toward

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Speaker 1: its destination. This is particularly useful during wart wartime, when

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Speaker 1: you might have to worry about enemy ships patrolling certain

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Speaker 1: areas of the seas and being able to navigate around them. Now,

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Speaker 1: the theory behind Lauren was solid. The math works. The

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Speaker 1: trick then was to make it a practical technology. Knowing

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Speaker 1: that the theory was sound was one thing, but to

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Speaker 1: put it into practice to actually build stuff that could

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Speaker 1: use it. That was another and that presented a bit

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Speaker 1: of a challenge. If the committee could find a way

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Speaker 1: to synchronize transmissions from radio towers hundreds of miles apart,

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Speaker 1: the scheme would work. But that synchronization was absolutely critical

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Speaker 1: because without it, the difference in time between the two

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Speaker 1: signals would be meaningless. The receiver would have no way

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Speaker 1: of knowing the relationship between time and distance if the

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Speaker 1: two sets of signals weren't sent out at exactly the

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Speaker 1: same time. The team requested about four hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: worth of equipment on December uh well in December, in

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Speaker 1: order to carry out an experimental run to determine if

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Speaker 1: the mathematically attractive solution was actually feasible in the real world.

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Speaker 1: And if we just that four hundred thousand dollars for inflation,

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Speaker 1: that would be about seven point two million dollars worth

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Speaker 1: of stuff in today's money. The team looked for suitable

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Speaker 1: spots to construct the transmission towers, and at first they

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Speaker 1: they considered some mountain peaks along the coast, but then

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Speaker 1: they found two former Coastguard lifeboat stations that had fallen

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Speaker 1: into disuse. One was outside Montauk Point, Long Island and

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Speaker 1: the other off of Fenwick Island, Delaware. The two locations

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Speaker 1: were two d nine nautical miles apart from one another,

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Speaker 1: and they weren't too far from the headquarters for the project,

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Speaker 1: which was in the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York.

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Speaker 1: The earliest tests concentrated not on synchronization, which was an

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Speaker 1: area that Alfred Lee Loomis was particularly intrigued by as

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Speaker 1: he had a fascination with timekeeping, but rather in how

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Speaker 1: far they could broadcast the radio signals. They tried several

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Speaker 1: different wavelengths to see which ones could perform best under

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Speaker 1: different situations, and they discovered that longer wave length radio

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Speaker 1: waves seemed to travel further at night, and shorter ones

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Speaker 1: seemed to travel further during daylight hours, and that kind

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Speaker 1: of suggested to them that maybe they should compromise and

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Speaker 1: go with a medium wave length signal that would perform

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Speaker 1: the best under most circumstances. They also did not test

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Speaker 1: it with a ship at sea at first. Rather, they

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Speaker 1: created a Loran receiver and they mounted it aboard a

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Speaker 1: humble station wagon that traveled as far away as Springfield, Missouri.

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Speaker 1: Now I have to say more about the development of

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Speaker 1: Lauren in just a second, but first let's take another

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Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. As work continued on

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Speaker 1: the lor End project, the group began to work on

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Speaker 1: a way to synchronize signals, because without synchronization, these equations

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Speaker 1: are not going to create an accurate hyperbola. The solution

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Speaker 1: was called a two trace indicator technique. A trace is

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Speaker 1: a type of log or record of events. A common

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Speaker 1: reference time acts as the anchor point for the traces,

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Speaker 1: which can then be analyzed against each other to determine

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Speaker 1: how close to synchronicity the two transmitters are and adjustments

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Speaker 1: can be made. Eventually, they created a time keeping algorithm

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Speaker 1: that was accurate enough that were in a wrist watch,

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Speaker 1: you could go for a full decade without losing a

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Speaker 1: minute on it. By January ninety two, the project was

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Speaker 1: able to create a system that had an average error

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Speaker 1: in the line of position of about two and a

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Speaker 1: half miles or around four kilometers, which sounds like an

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Speaker 1: awful lot, but when you're thinking about the distances that

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Speaker 1: these various craft were traveling, it was actually pretty good.

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Speaker 1: The remaining challenge was one that was solved relatively easily,

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Speaker 1: The problem was the receivers would pick up two signals

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Speaker 1: of different amplitudes, meaning different strength of signal, and the

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Speaker 1: difference in amplitudes made it more difficult to measure the

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Speaker 1: time difference between the signals accurately. So to fix this,

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Speaker 1: the team built in differential gain control to help boost

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Speaker 1: a low signal or dampen a powerful one, so that

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Speaker 1: the calculations could be made more easily. Successful tests with

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Speaker 1: ships and blimps convinced the U. S. Army and Navy

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Speaker 1: to fund the construction of transmission stations for a larger

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Speaker 1: tests in the Northwest Atlantic in nineteen two. Work continued

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Speaker 1: in America, Canada, and Greenland to build out transmission stations.

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Speaker 1: The project was a success, and work soon extended to

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Speaker 1: other parts of the coast, as well as over in

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Speaker 1: the UK. The application proved to be a sound one.

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Speaker 1: Advancements in receiver technology allowed aircraft to use the same

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Speaker 1: system a little bit later, which became incredibly useful during

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Speaker 1: the war. Planes and ships could meet at rendezvous points

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Speaker 1: that previously have been would have been impossible to achieve.

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Speaker 1: Uh they were able to pair together different navigation systems,

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Speaker 1: some of them were more accurate at closer ranges, and

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Speaker 1: Lauren was more accurate at long range, so using the

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Speaker 1: two together was really helpful. By the end of n

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Speaker 1: more than three thousand naval ships and thirty thousand planes

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Speaker 1: had Laura end technology aboard. After the war, the system

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Speaker 1: was recognized as being so useful as to be instrumental

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Speaker 1: in the shipping industry moving forward, and the US Coast

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Speaker 1: Guard even produced a short film to convince shipping companies

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Speaker 1: to adopt Lauren technologies for the purposes of navigation. Lauren

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00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:31,479
Speaker 1: stations were manned by military personnel, primarily the Coastguard. Now

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Speaker 1: according to the Coastguard blog site, an assignment to a

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Speaker 1: lur End station could be pretty lonesome. The crews tended

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Speaker 1: to range in size between eight and twenty five people,

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Speaker 1: and typically the person put in charge was a junior

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Speaker 1: officer who had maybe served a tour of duty aboard

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Speaker 1: a ship and now was put in charge of an office,

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Speaker 1: and frequently this would be the highest military officer rank

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Speaker 1: in the area, not meaning that the rank was particular

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Speaker 1: really high, but rather that these stations were in pretty

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00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: remote spaces, sometimes so much so that the only communication

401
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: you had with the outside world was the radio and

402
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,919
Speaker 1: frequently you had to have all your supplies shipped to

403
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: you on a regular basis. In fact, the blog post

404
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 1: said that for a lot of these people, the day

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00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 1: when a shipment came in would be a really big

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Speaker 1: day if you were on if you're posted to one

407
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:28,240
Speaker 1: of these places, because you would actually get to speak

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00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:31,160
Speaker 1: to people who weren't on your crew, and that could

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00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: be a real relief. Just imagine spending time was set

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00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: up to seven to twenty four other people, and those

411
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: are the only people you ever get to see. Ever,

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00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,679
Speaker 1: on top of that, the junior officers sometimes had to

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00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: act as a representative of the US military and uh

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00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: two people who were native to the areas that they

415
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: were stationed in. So in some cases it wasn't so

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00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: remote that you didn't have other people around you, but

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00:24:56,880 --> 00:25:00,119
Speaker 1: it was in a territory that did not belong the

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Speaker 1: United States, and there you are as an official of

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00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: the U. S Military, and you have to, you know,

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Speaker 1: serve as a representative of your country. So that put

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00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: a lot of extra pressure on you. It was pretty interesting. Now.

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00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: On a blog post for the Coast Guard, Lieutenant Connie

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Speaker 1: Brish said that a typical description of a tour of

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Speaker 1: duty at a Lorentz station would be quote hours of

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Speaker 1: boredom punctuated by moments of sheer panic end quote. Now,

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00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: the staff's primary function was to make sure that the

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00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: transmitters were working properly. That required standing watches, in which

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00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:39,159
Speaker 1: staff would literally remain in the room monitoring the equipment

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00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 1: for the transmitter to verify that everything was still working

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00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: as planned. It wasn't until a more advanced of Lauren

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00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: called Lauren C automated enough of the functions to remove

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00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:55,200
Speaker 1: that necessity, and Laurence would not see wide deployment in

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00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: the UH in the consumer world, especially until the nineteen seventies. Now,

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00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: the original No Lauran system was later called Lauren A.

435
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 1: Lauren B was the designation of a different version of

436
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 1: Lauren which used the phase of the signals as the

437
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: means of measuring time differences between the two received signals

438
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 1: rather than comparing the actual timing of the pulse envelopes themselves. So,

439
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:20,680
Speaker 1: in other words, the original version of Lauren was all

440
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 1: about when did this set of signals get to you?

441
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: When did this pulse arrive to your receiver, and how

442
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: does that compare to when this second pulse arrived to

443
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: your receiver. It was just based upon that the order

444
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: of operations of when a pulse of signals arrived to you.

445
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,639
Speaker 1: Lauren B was more about the phase of the signals

446
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 1: and using that to determine the time difference as opposed

447
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: to just this signal got to me first, and that

448
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: actually improved the accuracy of Lauren in many ways. The

449
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 1: United States Air Force was experimenting with a variation of

450
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 1: Lauren C Lauren C, which also fall the approach that

451
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 1: Lauren B was attempting to make. Lauren B never really

452
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: got to see much use. It was kind of phased

453
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: out pretty quickly, and Laurence took its place. Uh. Laurence

454
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: used that same approach. And then there was a variation

455
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: of Lauren C from the United States Airforce called Lauren

456
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 1: D that was used as a means to create guidance

457
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,880
Speaker 1: systems for the military and actually saw some limited use

458
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,679
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam War. And Motorola introduced a navigational system

459
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: that was not directly related to the other Laurens systems,

460
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 1: but because it used a pulse chain technology, it ended

461
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: up getting the nickname Lauren F, though again it wasn't

462
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: really connected to the other versions of Lauren. While Laurence

463
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,880
Speaker 1: was superior to Lauren A, it was also more expensive

464
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: to implement. It was more expensive to buy the receivers

465
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: and install them on your equipment, so not everyone immediately

466
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 1: switched over to Lauren C. Some people said, well, Lauren

467
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,439
Speaker 1: A works just fine and the system is still in place.

468
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: Both systems are working together or at least concurrently, so

469
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: I don't have to switch over. The companies that did

470
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 1: make the switch would frequently offload their old Lauren A equipment,

471
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 1: making Lauren A readily available and relatively inexpensive, which extended

472
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: its useful life quite a bit. The Coast Guard eventually

473
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: chose to discontinue Lauren A in all but a few

474
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: spots in the world in the late nineteen seventies and

475
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, kind of forcing a switch over to

476
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: Lauren C, And that was largely from an administrative standpoint.

477
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: You wanted to have something that was more automated and

478
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: you didn't have to dedicate as much staff to actually

479
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: manning these stations. A different technology eventually began to displace

480
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: Lauren altogether, and that was the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

481
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: Through the use of satellites in orbit, it became possible

482
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: to determine one's position on the planet with pretty good accuracy.

483
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:57,719
Speaker 1: But until the year two thousand, the GPS approach had

484
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 1: a built in limitation designed to keep accurate information out

485
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: of the hands of people who might use it to

486
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:07,480
Speaker 1: harm the United States. And this was called selective availability,

487
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: and it would introduce time varying errors on purpose to

488
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: reduce the accuracy of signals to about a hundred meters

489
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: if you were using civilian GPS. If you had military GPS,

490
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: this selective availability was not active. The whole selective availability

491
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: purpose was to prevent bad actors from being able to

492
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,479
Speaker 1: use GPS to hone in on sensitive US sites like

493
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: military bases. And in two thousand, President Bill Clinton signed

494
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: an agreement that turned off selective availability and reduced the

495
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: introduced errors to zero, meaning that you no longer had

496
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: any purposeful time varying errors inserted into the GPS signals,

497
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: giving citizens the opportunity to receive much more accurate GPS

498
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: readings and making stuff like real time mapping apps possible

499
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: because imagine using a real time mapping app and it's

500
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: still got the selective availability uh turned on and so

501
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 1: you know that sometime within a hundred meters you need

502
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: to turn right, but you aren't exactly sure where. It

503
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: might be a hundred meters ahead of you, might be

504
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: a hundred meters behind you, it might be somewhere within

505
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: that range, and you don't know if you've passed the

506
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: street already or not. Obviously, that would limit the usefulness

507
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: of GPS, but because we got rid of selective availability

508
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: in two thousand, we now can use apps that rely

509
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: on GPS that are far more accurate to just a

510
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: couple of meters. GPS became ubiquitous rapidly, and Loran was

511
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: phased out over time, but there has been talk of

512
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: developing a new LORAN system called e Loran or Enhanced Lauren.

513
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: That version would allow for a positional system accurate to

514
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: within eight meters, making it a potential backup should GPS

515
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: fail or should people try to block or jam GPS signals.

516
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: There's been reported GPS interference over the Black Sea, and

517
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:04,959
Speaker 1: there's been reported GPS blocking UH technologies around North Korea,

518
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 1: so this would be a way of getting around that.

519
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: You could not block it in the same way that

520
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: you would with GPS signals. The UK went so far

521
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 1: as to allocate resources to building out such a system,

522
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,479
Speaker 1: though the government would eventually reverse that decision in two

523
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen after France and Norway ended their Laura and transmissions.

524
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: And that's the story of Lauren, the really important technology

525
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: overseen by the Microwave Committee and then the Radiation Laboratory

526
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 1: of m T, which in turn was reporting to Alfred Lee. Loomis,

527
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: the guy I talked about last week, and I thought

528
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: it was pretty fascinating. I love watching the videos of

529
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: how this technology worked and the actual way of plotting

530
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: where you were on the map. It was a pretty

531
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 1: fascinating use of mathematics and technology. So I highly recommend

532
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: you go check out some of those videos so that

533
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: you can get a visualization on what I've been chatting about.

534
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: It's pretty fascinating stuff. If any of you have any

535
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, maybe it's a technology,

536
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: maybe it's a company, maybe it's a person in tech

537
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: I should talk about, you should send me those suggestions. Likewise,

538
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: if you think of someone I should interview or have

539
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: on as a guest, let me know. Send me an email.

540
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: The addresses tech Stuff at how stuff Works dot com

541
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: or draw me a line on Facebook or Twitter. The

542
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: handle of both of those is tech stuff hs W.

543
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Instagram just look for the

544
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: tech stuff account over there and you can check that

545
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: out as well. And remember I broadcast live on Wednesdays

546
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: and Fridays at twitch dot tv slash tech stuff. You

547
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: can watch me record these shows live and in person.

548
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: There's a chat room you can join in on and

549
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: I would love to see you in there, and I

550
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon. For more on

551
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff

552
00:32:52,760 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: works dot com eight