What does the name LORAN mean?

Answer 1

Loran is long range aid to navigation. It's an acronym. And it's a method of navigation that employed a number of fixed "sites" that had transmitters. The transmitters were sending out "pulses" on a strict time base. The pulses of two stations could be compared, and the time delay between their arrival at the receiver could be plotted on a map. The plot would create a "curved line" on that map (unless you were exactly the same distance from both sites, which would result in a straight line), and by then applying another set of plots to create another "curve" on the map, the point at which they crossed gave a "fix" or location. Piece of cake. Now we just use the GPS build into a little handheld device or our cell phones. Who knows how that works.... There is a link below for more information.