A series of long-range acoustic propagation experiments have been conducted in the North Pacific Ocean during the last 15 years using various combinations of low-frequency, wide-bandwidth transmitters and horizontal and vertical line array receivers, including a 2-dimensional array with a maximum vertical aperture of 1400 m and a horizontal aperture of 3600 m. These measurements were undertaken to further our understanding of the physics of low-frequency, broadband propagation and the effects of environmental variability on signal stability and coherence. In this volume some of the results are presented. In the present paper the central issues these experiments have addressed are briefly summarized.