Farmer Porn

[Susquatch]

Finally finished my taxes and taking a little time to stop and smell the roses.

Got my crops in a bit late this year but the corn is looking GREAT! Thought you folks might appreciate a little Farmer Porn - aka nice rows of corn! Guaranteed to get any farmer all excited!

My rows are not as straight as the best farmers, but I'm proud of it anyway. I built myself an RTK 1cm precision GPS System back before I joined the forum. It would have been an interesting project to share. But I have no autosteer so I don't use it for planting - only for fertilizing, spraying, and working dirt. Otherwise those corn rows would be precision aligned to be perfectly parallel to my laneway. Approximately the same precision as a tenth of a thou over the length of a 10" bar..... LOL!

 

[LenVW]

Looking good !!
Is autosteer accurate enough for scuffling and applying anhydrous ammonia ?
What are planting NRK, Pioneer, Dekalb ?

 

[Susquatch]

Looking good !!
Is autosteer accurate enough for scuffling and applying anhydrous ammonia ?
What are planting NRK, Pioneer, Dekalb ?

That's Pioneer Seed.

Yes, Auto Steer based on an RTK GPS signal is plenty accurate enough for scuffling and post fertilizing. RTK is the best GPS Positioning there is for real time use. I built two units. There is a base unit up at the house that knows exactly where it is. It compares its gps signal to its known position and then sends that correction to the mobile unit by radio so it can correct its own signal by the same amount. The result is 1cm precision. It is possible to further correct that signal with post processing for other applications, but that doesn't help much in real time applications.

Anyway, what the picture shows is what Susquatch did with his eyes and hands. It's not nearly as good as what autosteer and RTK gps can do but it's mine. Kinda like making a complicated part without CNC.

 

[Chicken lights]

That's Pioneer Seed.

Yes, Auto Steer based on an RTK GPS signal is plenty accurate enough for scuffling and post fertilizing. RTK is the best GPS Positioning there is for real time use. I built two units. There is a base unit up at the house that knows exactly where it is. It compares its gps signal to its known position and then sends that correction to the mobile unit by radio so it can correct its own signal by the same amount. The result is 1cm precision. It is possible to further correct that signal with post processing for other applications, but that doesn't help much in real time applications.

Anyway, what the picture shows is what Susquatch did with his eyes and hands. It's not nearly as good as what autosteer and RTK gps can do but it's mine. Kinda like making a complicated part without CNC.

It only has to be straighter than the neighbours.....

 

[LenVW]

That's Pioneer Seed.

Yes, Auto Steer based on an RTK GPS signal is plenty accurate enough for scuffling and post fertilizing. RTK is the best GPS Positioning there is for real time use. I built two units. There is a base unit up at the house that knows exactly where it is. It compares its gps signal to its known position and then sends that correction to the mobile unit by radio so it can correct its own signal by the same amount. The result is 1cm precision. It is possible to further correct that signal with post processing for other applications, but that doesn't help much in real time applications.

Anyway, what the picture shows is what Susquatch did with his eyes and hands. It's not nearly as good as what autosteer and RTK gps can do but it's mine. Kinda like making a complicated part without CNC.

I have to talk to my ‘farmer‘ brother, who lives near Bayfield, to stay up to date on the corn brands and agricultural technology. I am sure the tools have made long days on the tractor much more bearable.
My father was the biggest DEKALB dealer in SW Ontario in the 1980s.

 

[Susquatch]

It only has to be straighter than the neighbours.....

I love your insights!

Ya, and exactly there is my problem. The guy who farms the place next to me has gps planting with rows straighter than a lathe alignment bar......

But for $30 grand, I can deal with human precision.

 

[Susquatch]

I have to talk to my ‘farmer‘ brother, who lives near Bayfield, to stay up to date on the corn brands and agricultural technology. I am sure the tools have made long days on the tractor much more bearable.
My father was the biggest DEKALB dealer in SW Ontario in the 1980s.

In my opinion, the complexity increase is just more opportunity for things to go wrong..... I just don't like it when the guy in the combine is bitching about my crooked rows. It's kinda like a poor finish on that part you turned for the brother in law...... It's a pride thing.

 

[LenVW]

When I was on the farm in Huron County, the ‘side hills‘ were so bad we were running duals on the tractors so that we did not roll them while cultivating. I can remember compensating a row because the plater would wander 24” off the marker line.
LOL
Manual override was required for in field conditions.

 

[Former Member]

When I was in Univ, Surveying was part of the course. At the time civilian GPS was still being scrambled, commercial GPS access was too expensive and Military access, enough said.

The work around for surveying our properties was simple. Take a known point record the location in UTM format, measure your locations and re-measure your initial location. Most times only one time standard is drifting resulting in linear shifts. Now based on your time frame you can add corrections to your points within a cm in open areas.

Marine Loran and Framing RTK use the same system because its a real time correction.

The only draw back is the further you get from the accurate location slowly degrades as the shift changes with distance.

Now there is an article about 25yrs ago that you can pigback the Military GPS signal, though not decode it. All you are looking for is the time shift difference in the signal and with that you can calculate the correction in that Satellite adding the precision to the GPS.

Currently to my knowledge Civilian GPS is no longer drifted, but that may change given current state of world affairs.

 

[LenVW]

I will ask at our next KWRAA meeting about the GPS drift.
Our president keeps the club updated as to per Canadian Aviation Regs.

 

[Former Member]

Basically how they drift it is drifting the time clock signal (not the actual clock) slightly intentionally. The precision comes from how many decimal places they use for the clock signal. Civilian, commercial, military.

Other things that effect accuracy is multipath signals (ie reflected signals) that change the apparent distance. This is why your accuracy changes with tree cover or in around tall buildings in a car GPS.

How GPS signals are also degrades is radio noise (intentional or un-intentional) that distorts the clock message (among other methods).

 

[Susquatch]

Currently to my knowledge Civilian GPS is no longer drifted, but that may change given current state of world affairs.

No need to ask @LenVW .

The military deliberate drifting was removed by Bill Clinton on my birthday many decades ago. It has not been deliberately drifted ever since.

But @Degen is correct. There are many other sources of error. A single reading is still time precision limited by such things as the antenna, reflections, etc etc etc. It's plenty good enough for navigation purposes though. In fact, with a decent antenna, position can be determined within a meter without any correction at all.

RTK (Real Time Kinetic) was developed to further improve all those errors. It uses a known position base station to determine the signal and time shift errors and send a correction to a rover unit. And yes, distance introduces another error. But since I built my own base station right on the farm, distance degradation is not an issue. I get real time exact location within a centimeter.

 

[Former Member]

It has been drifted on a few occasions 911, and a couple other occasions when the threat level was high.

 

[Susquatch]

It has been drifted on a few occasions 911, and a couple other occasions when the threat level was high.

Didn't know that. I thought the current generation of satellites didn't even have the capability to have deliberate error. Are you sure of that? The simple fact is that it wouldn't matter to any corrected system though so if they did do that, it's kind of a waste of effort if you ask me.

 

[historicalarms]

I prefer a steering wheel...it will turn equally well in both directions every time.

 

[Chicken lights]

In my opinion, the complexity increase is just more opportunity for things to go wrong..... I just don't like it when the guy in the combine is bitching about my crooked rows. It's kinda like a poor finish on that part you turned for the brother in law...... It's a pride thing.

We held the same feelings for our stumps, when I was logging. It won’t mean much to many people but we took pride in both how we left the bush looking overall, and how low and clean the stumps were left. Plus, if we did a good job cutting, there was a better quality butt log. It arguably didn’t put any more money in our pocket, but the company kept a good name, so in a long term way it kept us employed. So I get wanting straight rows, most people driving by won’t care but the neighbours judge, gotta have something to talk about in a small town LOL

 

[Susquatch]

I prefer a steering wheel...it will turn equally well in both directions every time.

Ya, I'm on the same page. I'd like straighter rows. But.....

In my opinion, the only thing more untrustworthy than a self guided tractor is a self driving car. At least the tractor is out on a farm field instead of surrounded by innocent people on the highway. But there are many who argue they would rather drive next to a computer than most of the idiots on the road now.

gotta have something to talk about in a small town LOL

So true! You are full of wisdom lately! I love it!

 

[whydontu]

Ya, I'm on the same page. I'd like straighter rows. But.....

In my opinion, the only thing more untrustworthy than a self guided tractor is a self driving car. At least the tractor is out on a farm field instead of surrounded by innocent people on the highway. But there are many who argue they would rather drive next to a computer than most of the idiots on the road now.


So true! You are full of wisdom lately! I love it!

The concept of a powered vehicle driven in traffic, controlled by software, terrifies me. Have you met many programmers? My older brother is a senior software engineer, his boss is a P.Eng (chemical) and a also a senior software engineer. Both of them need help to go to a 7-11.

 

[DPittman]

Rows look great! I've never been able to drive straight for the life of me. Even with a mile long even summerfallow fields with telephone poles to aim at I couldn't keep it very straight. I don't do alot of field work but when I do it's all on the latest gps guided machinery and I love it!

The evenness of the corn stand looks awesome. And that is from an agronomist and former Pioneer seed rep ( I can talk about farming with more confidence than I can machining)

 

[Former Member]

Didn't know that. I thought the current generation of satellites didn't even have the capability to have deliberate error. Are you sure of that? The simple fact is that it wouldn't matter to any corrected system though so if they did do that, it's kind of a waste of effort if you ask me.

Actually its very simple as they send the time and the GPS calculates the distance and location based on the sat location, which is why you need at least 3, the more the better the location.

As to why they scramble mobile long range systems (think foreign ICBMs) do not track LORAN or the RKT systems but rely on Civilian GPS which if scrambled to a 100m is the difference between a miss or a damaging hit.

GPS sat's are all USA sat's.

Now to be fair there is a lot more to it than this, but for the purposes of general info and understanding it is more than enough.