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Salient: Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Vol. 32, No. 8. 1969.

No Omega for Polaris claim

No Omega for Polaris claim

Omega navigational equipment is not used on Polaris missile-carrying submarines, Captain M. X. Polk, U.S. Navy, said in Wellington recently.

As project manager for Omega since 1965 with control over all Omega receivers in the USA, Captain Polk said: "There is no Omega receiver in a Polaris submarine, I have not, and cannot, justify expenditure of money on Omega equipment for Polaris submarines."

Stating that the accuracy of Omega was not sufficient, Captain Polk said: "Polaris is not using Loran A (from which Omega was developed) and will not use Omega."

Captain Polk, who headed a team to negotiate with the governments, said that no other country in the world had protested in any way about the establishment of Omega. No communist country, including the People's Republic of China, had voiced any criticism.

They had both agreed to the use of the particular Very Low Frequency wavebands required for Omega through the International Frequency Control Board.

Answering a question about the manning of Omega stations outside the USA, Captain Polk said: "There will be no US base, and no US personnel." The stations would be under full control of the host countries.

In the course of comment as to the technical possibility of coding the Omega signals to make them usable by only one side in a war, it was stated that the Omega system is completely unclassified, at the request of the British government, and access to the electronics is free.

The system would be cheaper to run than the present Loran A navigation system, which covers 15% of the world's surface, using 80 stations, with running costs of $30 million per year. Eight Omega stations, with 100% coverage, would cost $1 million a year to run.

Captain Polk was emphatic that the system was [unclear: on] [unclear: ur] [unclear: under] theoreticaly perfect conditions, and that that accuracy was only obtainable 61% of the time, using shore-based monitoring stations.

Referring to the alleged accuracy of the Omega system to within 200 yards, Captain Polk said that this was the manufacturer's advertised accuracy of the receivers. This meant, he said, that the figure of 200 yards had to he added to transmission accuracy, under perfect conditions, of one half mile, In actual practice, said Captain Polk, the U.S. Navy had only been able to obtain results at sea of between one and two miles.

Omega would therefore be carried aboard ordinary submarines, as signals could be received between 35 and 40 feet underwater, and the accuracy was sufficient for tactical use. It was quite insufficient for polaris submarines.

An Omega receiver would cost about $3,800, at the cheapest, suitable for use on small fishing boats, costing around $2,000. This is approximately the value of Decca equipment.