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TACAN (Tactical Air Navigation) is a military UHF system that provides both bearing and distance to the station in a single compact unit — the military equivalent of a VOR-DME. It operates in the 960–1215 MHz band and offers finer bearing resolution than a VOR, which suits fast, high-workload military operations and shipboard use.

Civil aircraft cannot read TACAN bearing, but they can use its distance (DME) component, because DME and TACAN share the same underlying signal format. That is why a civilian receiver tuned to the paired VHF channel of a VORTAC still gets distance — it is actually interrogating the TACAN. Stand-alone TACANs are usually found at or near military airfields; for civil flight planning the practical value is the DME distance they provide.