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Thank you for posting the link to that article. It was interesting, but as you can tell, I’m still not convinced. I’ll stipulate the cell towers could be used, and assuming that other terrestrial emitters could be used, it’s obviously possible (theoretically) to come up with some sort of position calculation. What’s less apparent to me after reading the article, what level of accuracy are we talking about using a system that they are describing?

I’ll go back to my previous point since the system described does not really lend itself to marine or aeronautical applications. Flying domestically there would be bazillions of signal sources all yammering at whatever receiver the aircraft was using. You can “line of sight” way too much at 37,000 ft.. In a marine environment, one is operating where there is nothing “line of sight”. Certainly no cell towers, tv stations or vhf/uhf sources available. This goes for aircraft as well. Yes, there are fallback technologies available, but I’ve become spoiled by having a gps receiver in the bottom of my flight case (just in case). NDB, LORAN, laser ring gyros, LNAV systems, they’re just fine and I’ve used them all, but they are not even close to the accuracy of that little box in the bottom of my flight bag that never really had to be used (but it was awfully nice to know it was in there).

Out of curiousity, did the system that was described actually go beyond a theoretical discussion? Just curious, as I truly had never heard of it till you were kind enough to point it out to me. I’m obliged for that.