1970s Sat nav

[Austin Prefect]

Watching James Burke's Connections series for the first time in decades I was surprised to see a demonstration of a satellite navigation system. Unlike GPS, it used the doppler technique satellites use to locate distress beacons, but in reverse. The receiver picked up a satellite signal and by measuring the exact frequency received it could tell where it was in relation to the known position of the satellite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTUPNL8dc_4

[Murph7355]

[hidetheelephants]

There was satellite navigation in the 60s, although it was only available to the military and was very far from the precision of GPS, IIRC errors of quarter of a mile were typical. Fine for navigating far from land but not much use for aiming weapons.

[FilH]

hidetheelephants said:

There was satellite navigation in the 60s, although it was only available to the military and was very far from the precision of GPS, IIRC errors of quarter of a mile were typical. Fine for navigating far from land but not much use for aiming weapons.

That must have been the tech they used in the scud missiles duing the gulf war! I seem to remember it being mentioned they were NOS from the 70s!

[rdjohn]

hidetheelephants said:

There was satellite navigation in the 60s, although it was only available to the military and was very far from the precision of GPS, IIRC errors of quarter of a mile were typical. Fine for navigating far from land but not much use for aiming weapons.

I think Russia are still using this system in Ukraine.