FINAL REPORT - Stakeholders - Ofcom

Navaid Development Impact on Spectrum Comment
En-route
Loran-C
NDB
VOR
DME
Support for Loran is
decreasing – the EC or
EUROCONTROL are
not likely to support
Loran in their plans. It
may therefore become
redundant as EGNOS
and Galileo are
introduced.
Withdrawal of NDB in
Europe by 2010 as
part of move to RNAV
operations.
Rationalisation in the
near-term. Redundant
system as far as
commercial aviation is
concerned.
Advent of GNSS and
direct routing will lead
to decommissioning of
VOR infrastructure in
the long term.
Operational
requirements on DME
increase due to greater
traffic density and
European reliance on
DME/DME
infrastructure.
From an aviation
perspective, the
spectrum could be
freed for other
applications.
However, aviation is
not the sole users of
Loran.
An opportunity to
allow secondary uses
(on a non-interfering
basis) during the
transition.
Once region is NDBfree,
the spectrum
could be re-used for
other applications
(locally in UK / Europe
initially – other ICAO
regions may not be so
quick to
decommission NDBs).
Possible alternative
uses in-band in the
long term with
secondary use in the
short term. (see also
discussion on same
subject in Section 5).
Greater congestion in
960-1215 MHz band.
NELS has
development plans
through to 2020.
Although aviation’s
requirements on
Loran are very low,
there are other users,
for example maritime,
who continue to
promote the system.
Introduction of Eurofix
may mean Loran is
used as GNSS
augmentation in the
short->medium term.
GA still has use in UK
(particularly when
used as airport
locators), as does
offshore operations.
The freeing of the
NDB spectrum
depends on:
a)how powerful the
GA lobby will be;
b) how quickly GA will
move to a GNSSbased
solution.
Also, even if only GA
uses NDBs, they will
still constitute a
‘safety-of-life’
application, and
require the requisite
protection from inband
or out-of-band
interference.
Again, GA’s speed of
transition to GNSS will
determine how fast
these
decommissioning
plans will be
implemented.
EUROCONTROL
supports a DME/DME
infrastructure as
backup to GNSS.
Greater coverage
therefore required –
approx 230 extra
stations are expected
to be implemented.
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