Are radio direction finders completely obsolete?

[Stewie12]

After our Satnav antenna was put out of action by lightening we picked up Barbados AM radio station 400 miles out in the Atlantic with a transistor radio. Tune the radio to the station and then find the "null" by turning the radio until the signal is at its lowest point. The radio station is then either in front of you or behind you and then take a bearing. There is a book of radio stations of the world and it is handy to have a simple back up.

[Sailor Sailor]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Ppps, a person cannot be found merely because they have a gps receiver , lets leave that nonsense to the tin foil hat adherents

Doctors do not use typewriters as legal accountability requires a information trace. The same is true for lawyers. Let’s not advance entirely nonsensical “ opinion” to forward an untenable argument

Far more people will board a steam hauled excursion train this weekend then have ever used a mechanical typrewriter in the last 20 years. Is steam obsolete , yes but obsolete doesn’t mean disappeared of the planet.

You tend to frame these discussions as an "either or" choice. It is not. They are not mutually exclusive. One can use more than one navigation device or method of communication.

It is nice to have a nonlawyer/nondoctor tell me what lawyers or doctors do, given that I am a lawyer. BTW, the typewriter communications I referred to are the type that would not be disclosed to anyone, so you would not know about them. There is no "typewriter signature" because the piece of paper is destroyed. The whole purpose is to avoid any record of the communication.

And a mega yacht can be found by its electronics.

[Leighpilot]

Yes. I can’t even find one for sale. Even if you could , it’d be more expensive than a GPS unit.

[betwys1]

Originally Posted by Sailor Sailor

Have radio direction finders become completely obsolete? Are any aircraft or vessels still using them? Are there still stations transmitting signals?

Not so many years ago, RDF could use any old broadcast station in the requisite band usually MF. With the advent of GPS which has world-wide reach, DF went away, specially since there are multiple SatNav systems now functioning, so one is not at the mercy of the US military for aircraft navigation.
(Actually, LORAN C grew in popularity first, now THAT'S gone away too.)

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Sailor Sailor

You tend to frame these discussions as an "either or" choice. It is not. They are not mutually exclusive. One can use more than one navigation device or method of communication.

It is nice to have a nonlawyer/nondoctor tell me what lawyers or doctors do, given that I am a lawyer. BTW, the typewriter communications I referred to are the type that would not be disclosed to anyone, so you would not know about them. There is no "typewriter signature" because the piece of paper is destroyed. The whole purpose is to avoid any record of the communication.

And a mega yacht can be found by its electronics.

Im not arguing either or , I’m arguing RDF and mechanical typewriters are obsolete , not that they are extinct. A few tin foul hat types maybe convinced to own them.

What I’m not doing and you are is to expound bizarre situations to prevent a totally nonsensical argument. Talking about tracking oligarchs just makes it even more nonsensical .

Wordprocessing is mainstream , gps is mainstream

My daughter an ex lawyer now a diplomat , three of my closest friends are lawyers , one is a partner . None have admitted to using mechanical typrewriters ever.

Institutions that require and justify to create untraceable electronic communications can and do spend a lot of money and expertixe to do Just that.

Anything mechanical leaves a trace only electrons can leave no trace !,

Everything can be hidden if the price is right.

[martin.purser]

Probably a serious question, and rightly so. But being one of an age where there was no GPS or satnav. One does ponder the constant amalgamation of all instruments through NMEA etc. 50 years ago when I was delivering yachts all over the Atlantic, Caribbean , and Med we used sextant, DR plots, checked our compass deviation by the rising of the dawn etc, and of course RDF. Everything is of course dandy in those days till everything clouded over and the fog rolled in (Try Newport R.I.) I've made landfall into Newport a few times on RDF. And that's after a ocean passage. Just imagine having your fully integrated nmea instruments GPS etc all go down or some major electrical system failure or brownout. Would I carry a RDF, yes and do. I also carry a sextant, tables etc. Just in case! Ebay have many RDF's available for not a lot of money. When the batteries go flat and the gps dies, you'll be glad of a RDF on board and maintaining your plot on a real chart!

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by martin.purser

Probably a serious question, and rightly so. But being one of an age where there was no GPS or satnav. One does ponder the constant amalgamation of all instruments through NMEA etc. 50 years ago when I was delivering yachts all over the Atlantic, Caribbean , and Med we used sextant, DR plots, checked our compass deviation by the rising of the dawn etc, and of course RDF. Everything is of course dandy in those days till everything clouded over and the fog rolled in (Try Newport R.I.) I've made landfall into Newport a few times on RDF. And that's after a ocean passage. Just imagine having your fully integrated nmea instruments GPS etc all go down or some major electrical system failure or brownout. Would I carry a RDF, yes and do. I also carry a sextant, tables etc. Just in case! Ebay have many RDF's available for not a lot of money. When the batteries go flat and the gps dies, you'll be glad of a RDF on board and maintaining your plot on a real chart!

Again

On my boat there are 11 GPS , across ships systems , tablets , laptops , iPhones etc. This is very common in today’s boats. Where 4-6 gps devices or more are present , only one of These is on the nmea2000 system.

Hence you are immune to total blackout. My lightening strike left all the phone and laptops fine.

Hence I have , like many boats loads of redundant systems.

Rdf is no good because most beacons are switched off , hence it’s very hard to use and nearly impossible to get a new handheld

Sextant is fine but very few ocean crossings now carry them. It’s really a hobby within a hobby.

So speculating boat electrical failure is easy and cheaply resolved with redundant gps systems.

I was on a big cat recently with teens and parents , we counted 15 gps on board !!!

Correction , 13 gps onboard as my Rut955 has an integrated one as does the $15 dollar ESP32 system that arrived from China yesterday

[betwys1]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Never owned an MFD but I would guess they will give a GC course and distance cos that is simpler to work out than mercator course and distance.

It would be simple enough to write a simple plane sailing program into the software for distances under 600 miles but I doubt if any bother.
Now opcn is interesting and I'm not sure what it actual calculates over short distances but I am guessing GC as there is no difference.
Longer distances it uses and shows GC but offers the option of rhumb line.

Now the funny story is strange funny not funny funny.
I still have the old 'burglebrand' CMap program given to the world by Ivan Ivanovitch of St Petersburg many many years ago.

That will show the rhumb line track and the GC course at the same time which could be rather dangerous in the wrong hands.
Extreme example - you enter a route between somewhere in New Zealand and somewhere in the same lat in Chile. It will show a track of 090* but display a course of 128* - which if entered into your autopilot would put you on the beach round the back of East Cape muy pronto.

I suspect this is a trick question.

I don't get the cautionary note about GC headings; the GC is the shortest route between two points on Earth - and sure, if there is land in the way of the shortest route, you need to go round obstacles. But this example uses East Cape which is a coastal region of South Africa (Surely not the one in N America, I don't suppose?
Perhaps one is taking an initial heading too seriously? GC headings usually change continuously. If aircraft can handle that, I expect sailing vessels can too??

[betwys1]

Originally Posted by martin.purser

Probably a serious question, and rightly so. But being one of an age where there was no GPS or satnav. One does ponder the constant amalgamation of all instruments through NMEA etc. 50 years ago when I was delivering yachts all over the Atlantic, Caribbean , and Med we used sextant, DR plots, checked our compass deviation by the rising of the dawn etc, and of course RDF. Everything is of course dandy in those days till everything clouded over and the fog rolled in (Try Newport R.I.) I've made landfall into Newport a few times on RDF. And that's after a ocean passage. Just imagine having your fully integrated nmea instruments GPS etc all go down or some major electrical system failure or brownout. Would I carry a RDF, yes and do. I also carry a sextant, tables etc. Just in case! Ebay have many RDF's available for not a lot of money. When the batteries go flat and the gps dies, you'll be glad of a RDF on board and maintaining your plot on a real chart!

So your RDF does not use battery power then?

[betwys1]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

http://146970.com/PDFs/RDFing.pdf

very popular in some parts

Oh great! All you need now is a supply of long distance VHF and UHF beacons!

[Baronkrak]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Hence you are immune to total blackout.

But not immune from GPS blackout.

[Derek Lumb]

RDF may be obsolete for the cruising sailor but RDF is still used by the SAR services to locate a casualty. All the RNLI All Weather lifeboats and the Atlantic 85 inshore lifeboats have direction finding kit on board. The UK coastguard decommissioned their RDF equipment some years ago. You may hear a casualty being asked to count down numbers - this is to provide a signal for the lifeboat to find the direction.

[Cynara]

There are still AM band radio stations. Do they still print the location on the charts

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Baronkrak

But not immune from GPS blackout.

If your receivers support GLONASS, Galileo, and/or BeiDou, you're generally pretty safe. By the time multiple satellite navigation systems have been knocked offline, something so bad has likely happened that I probably don't care much about where I am, I'd be happy to get anywhere and figure out what's going on.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Baronkrak

But not immune from GPS blackout.

If that happens I can walk home as ocean will Be glass