That is precisely how it's done, reverse triangulation. The issue with airplanes is the speed factor. Moving at from 2 to 5 miles per minute, it is a bit imprecise unless your Nav can plot it all out for you.  Ships have a better deal.  Others ways are possible using the is/was method of moving a number of degrees  parallel to the station, noting the azimuth change, and by applying speed and time, determine tangentially your distance to the station. Again, easier for ships than aircraft.  I started with ADF, Loran A, and VOR.  When GPS came about, what a miracle.  If or when GPS were to go down, a lot of folks will be unable to navigate, short of charts and checkpoints... if they remember.... 
K3HVG
On 03/27/2023 10:01 AM Bill Cromwell <[email protected]> wrote:


As a wide-eyed bystander I wonder if taking do bearings on two or three broadcast stations might Captain Wrongway Peachfuzz sort out the multiple choices.

73,

Bill KU8H

Bark less - wag more

On Mar 27, 2023, at 8:04 AM, [email protected] wrote:

Note that tuning in an AM broadcast radio station with an aircraft ADF remains an undiminished capability in terms of navigation. The location of aircraft NDB's is based on using the stations for published IFR approaches. Anyone doing that under actual IFR conditions should have his life insurance paid up and perhaps his driver's license revoked, because even a cheap handheld GPS will do a far better job. If you want to fly to Podunk or Pixley or Punxsutawney, tuning in a AM station there will work just fine. On the Smithsonian Air Disasters series they related the case of a Brazilian 737 where the pilots misread a computer generated flight plan as 270 rather than 27.0 degrees, flew off into the setting sun, and were astonished when the airfield did not appear in their windshield. Unable to get the VOR, they used the ADF to tune in a station that was broadcasting an important soccer, but without checking to see it's location. They flew off into the jungle, over 400 mile
s off course, ran out of fuel, and crashed.

Wayne
WB5WSV
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