March 2011

Q2 b
GPS

Provided all equipment, ariels, satellites functioning and properly maintained; No outside
jamming or weather phenomena and solid lock of many more than the min number of sats
required this position could be considered reliable, a prudent OOW would still be cautions
and use full navaids to assess position and navigation.

Summary;

GPS is normally reliable, It is vulnerable to:

● Loss of signal due to aerial damage.
● Solar Flare interference.
● Malicious interference, skewing.
● Malicious jamming.
● Unintentional jamming

RADAR

Radar range 4NM at a guess; die to low lying lands and corals radar is not receiving echoes
from such. Although RADAR is very reliable if maintained properly the radar can still be
defeated by operator not fully understanding its limitations and understand the full situation

Summary;

● Radar Observations probably unreliable in this case.

● The target is not clearly identified, low lying and at long range

CELESTIAL;

(Why fucking bother) Good Relibilty provied,

No/Little systematic or random error encountered and horizon visible.

Not cloudy or raining or overcast or object obscured by funnel or Ship.
Operator has correctly identified objects at a few million miles away.
V/L has not been subject to erratic collision avoidance courses for accurate DR.
Sextant hasn't been dropped or mishandled... At all.. in the sextants lifetime.
Position taken over few minutes, at best, only past position is known.
Worth removing navigator away from rest of Navaids and bridge and situation awareness
A clock which is know time of GMT or LT and correct and verified.
V/L only encounters position problems @ sunrise or fall.
Operator can correctly use books, Other navigators can correctly use books to verify.
Operator has a chance to be proficiency by frequent daily use of sextant.

Actual answer, ​Celestial observations are reliable.

Clear skies, good visibility and calm seas. Good horizon.
Bright stars, a good range of bearings and at moderate altitudes.
No apparent discrepancy between the four observations.