GPS will soon be obsolete?

[Dave Lehnert]

Was talking to a friend tonight and she said a story on TV said that GPS systems we now own will be obsolete. Something new was coming along.
Anyone know anything about this?

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Good god I hope not. I've got $40,000 a copy systems in five ag machines. Of course, they run sub inch accurate year to year on an RTK correction signal, and drive the machine, but I really don't want to update that again anytime soon.

There are some pretty cool correction systems out there, WAAS has been around for a while and gets sub meter (sort of), Omnistar gets within a foot repeatability, and the Russians are getting their system up and going (I forget what its called). Maybe it's one of those?

I also hear that we are not maintaining the GPS satilites correctly, and trouble is looming...

[Dennis Peacock]

Sounds like you have quiet an operation going there Steve.!!! I'd like to know more about it....and the "trouble looming".

I love my GPS and I hope "they" leave things alone. :)

[Mitchell Andrus]

I wouldn't doubt that triangulating between cell towers (now just about everywhere) could be more accurate and far cheaper to maintain for non-military (surface) use, like us rubes getting lost on the way to grandma's house. For military, we do need something that is tougher to jam.
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[Curt Harms]

and the replacement schedule is running late. The Russians have a system (GLONASS) and the EU is working on a system (Gallileo) as well. Other countries don't like relying on a U.S. military system which is understandable. I seem to remember something about the U.S. military looking at a next generation system that was more secure and less easy to jam. I don't know about other devices but aircraft Nav systems can use multiple sources and it's often a matter of swapping circuit boards and updating the software to use a new signal source. I thought new Flight Management Systems were outrageously expensive ($60,000 more or less) until I saw Steve's post. Wowza.

[Kevin L. Pauba]

I wonder if the new phones and google's announcement of a "google maps navigator" system is what will make existing GPSs (TomTom, Garming, etc.) obsolete. I read somewhere that the stocks of the existing GPS companies dropping significantly with the announcement.

[RickT Harding]

I think what they probably saw was that Google has a new cell phone coming out on verizon with a turn by turn navigation application included by default.

There's been rumors this means trouble for the in car GPC manufacturers. This new phone comes with a dock to put into your car. Since this is built into the phone, people would be less likely to spend the $$ on a different unit.

http://wallstreetblips.dailyradar.com/article/trouble-for-gps-makers-google-offers-free-turn-by-turn/

[Shawn Pixley]

I think the original story was around how the Mobile technology and Google are influencing the casual user. It certainly won't help my Navigation on the Pacific Ocean nor other's use. (Ag Navigation , aircraft, etc...). My 2 cents if you have GPS and like it don't worry and don't change.

PS you can tell when the Military dials up or dial back the accuracy.

[John Lohmann]

If you rely on cell phones for navigation in parts of GA & AL for example, you better make sure you have a map. If you can find one.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Good god I hope not. I've got $40,000 a copy systems in five ag machines. Of course, they run sub inch accurate year to year on an RTK correction signal, and drive the machine, but I really don't want to update that again anytime soon.

There are some pretty cool correction systems out there, WAAS has been around for a while and gets sub meter (sort of), Omnistar gets within a foot repeatability, and the Russians are getting their system up and going (I forget what its called). Maybe it's one of those?

I also hear that we are not maintaining the GPS satilites correctly, and trouble is looming...

Steve,

You will have to 'splain it for Dennis and some of the city boys. GPS on tractors and combines effects fertlizer appications, and I suppose weed treatments etc.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Was talking to a friend tonight and she said a story on TV said that GPS systems we now own will be obsolete. Something new was coming along.
Anyone know anything about this?


Yah to make sure they are taking care of us and controlling costs we are all getting chipped.

[John Shuk]

I think that the current feeling is that folks will skip the stand alone units and use things like smart phones to navigate. I can see that happening. Who wants all of these separate electronic devices when one or two can do so much. Some people still use maps. Imagine that.

[Myk Rian]

Present day GPS units will become obsolete, only because a new satellite system is being built. Our son-in-law is working on the system.

[Paul Ryan]

As this point the cell phone system of navigation is horse manure. I have used that type of navigation on T-mobile and sprint. But I do not have any experience with Verizon. The reason that I think the cell phone version is so bad is due to the fact it is very in accurate. It only triangulates your position off of 3 towers. Accuracy is 1/4 mile that is a long way. The GPS accuracy is a lot better because they use up to 11 satelites. Todays GPS maybe obsolete some day but I don't see it anytime soon. Expecially with the amount of equipment these companies sell.

[Dave Lehnert]

I think that the current feeling is that folks will skip the stand alone units and use things like smart phones to navigate. I can see that happening. Who wants all of these separate electronic devices when one or two can do so much. Some people still use maps. Imagine that.

I did some poking around the web and that is what I am reading also.
I can just answer for myself but would never spend the $$$ for web on my cell to use GPS. I am a low use Tracfone user so my cell phone cost me $100 a year.
I did read something that the Government will stop supporting GPS for the public in 2020.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Hope I don't bore you all, but here is some more info on the GPS systems in our operation.

We use Trimble receivers that pick up a gps signal, and an RTK signal. The RTK signal is a correction signal that basically allows the receiver to calculate the difference between the known constant position of the RTK signal transmitter and the military tweaked current gps reading. These change constantly, and for example when the RTK signal says that the actual position is 1.3456 foot due west of where the current gps position, it corrects the machine receiver, and we get really accurate positioning. This system allows us to have sub inch accurate year to year passes.

Our systems also steer the tractors, sprayers and soon to be combines in various patterns. This allows us to do extremely precise fertilizer placement, with one machine, and to follow with another and plant the seeds directly over it. We can then follow up with chemicals banded on in narrow strips to save costs, or any other cultivation, treatment or harvest pass. This system also allows us to confine wheel compaction to minimal rows.

We farm between 8 and 10 square miles spread out through the northern Nebraska panhandle. Another advantage of this system is that it allows us to take georeferanced soil samples, and then make a variable rate prescription that is implemented with the gps systems controlling seed, chemicals or fertilizers. The Ag Leader monitors in our machines monitor and georeferance all input application. I can then use a different office based system to make whatever report I need based on the very precise data collection, which would be completely impossible without these machine based gps systems.

For our farm, these systems pay for themselves in two years.

It's kind of wierd how ag has changed in the last 10 years. I haven't actually driven one of my tractors in a very long time, but I know more about what happens in the fields now than ever before. Just like everything else, the right data is the key to profit.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Steve,

Thanks for the explanation. My grandparents and a lot of uncles are/were farmers. My wifes family are all farmers. One of them had given me that explanation but I didn't want to make a mistake trying to explain it. Our oldest son had the opportunity to go back to central Illinois and help one of my wife's cousins harvest last year. When I retire, I expect to help during harvest too...just for the fun of it.

[Dennis Peacock]

Wow Steve.!!!! That's like farming with crazy stuff right there!!!

No matter what Fitz has to say about me :p I grew up farming in Alabama. We had to "hand crank" our tractors and then we got a fancy new International tricycle wheeled tractor that would crank by turning a key and pushing a button. Man that was heaven!!!!! Picked cotton by pulling a burlap sack behind me and hand picking until it was near full, pulled it to a trailer for weighing, emptying into the trailer, and handing make to me for more. Corn was easier to harvest as we got to ride on the side of the trailer and pulled the corn by hand and tossed it in the trailer.

I remember us getting a John Deere 4640 with an enclosed cab. Boy was that ever a change!!!! Tilt wheel, cushy seat, hydrostatic drive, and a AM/FM Radio. To top it all off....the crazy thing had a heater for winter and a fan in the cab for summer months.

Besides, I thought the whole purpose of getting a new tractor is so that you could drive that baby down the road and show it off every once in a while. :D

Is your farm subsidized? Just wondering as it seems that those are the only farms making it these days.

[Pat Germain]

There were some recent rumblings from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about the reliability of GPS possibly going as low as 80%. The U.S. Air Force, who maintains GPS, came out and basically said the report was bogus. Boeing, one of the contractors involved in GPS, said they had some scheduling challenges, but that was pretty much it.

As for the future of GPS, when the European versions come online, the obvious next step will be for navigation units to also use all the new satellites for positioning. (This would require using multiple frequencies and standards which don't yet exist.)

So, in summary, if you have any kind of device or devices which use the current, U.S. GPS, it's not going to be obsolete. And I've never heard anything about the government ending support. If this is the case, I'd be interested to see a report about it.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Ken, I'm kind of wondering about your sanity, harvesting for fun?! ;) I guess if the weather is nice and the crops are good... Illinios is one of those places where they raise REALLY good corn, so that would be neat to see.

Dennis, I'd say you've seen the manual side of farming! Grandpa had several old hand crank tractors that we would use to put up hay. Scared the bejeebers out of me to start one when I was a kid. Easier to just park on a hill! Yes this farm takes FSA subsidies, we all do. The system is so intertwined that is you want to buy crop insurance, the underwritters use Farm Service Agency maps to prove acres and yields, but to get the FSA to get those documents, you have to enroll in the program. It's stupid. Our take off the program is about 1.5% of our total revenue, so to tell you the truth, I wish it would just go away. The smaller farmers get a higher payment in relation to revenue because there is a $40,000 cap, and most larger farms reach it.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Steve,

One of my earliest memories is sitting a wagon with "bank boards" on each side behind Dollie and Joe my maternal grandfathers pulling pair. 3 uncles and my grandfather each hand shucking two rows of corn. Whenever the wagon needed to be pulled forward I thought I was in control. Years later I realized Dollie and Joe were probably responding to Grandpa's verbal commands and not my 5 year old nudgings.:o

[Steve Rozmiarek]

That's a good memory Ken! When I was a kid playing in Grandpa's barn, I used to try to figure out how all that old harnass went together. What a hugely complicated process getting into the field used to be! I have a neighbor who works a few acres now with horses, just to preserve the past. He started out this spring wanting to plant 18 acres of skip row corn. It took them most of a week to get about half of it, then they decided to grow oats on the rest!

[Curt Harms]

anybody remember using wire spools with corn planters? I barely do. It was used to plant corn in "hills" groups of 3 or 4 seeds as I recall. That way you could use mechanical cultivation for weed control. The first pass north-south for instance, and the second pass easy-west. The plants rows needed to align both ways in order for that to work. Make a pass with the planter, remove the wire from the trip mechanism, turn the planter around, move the wire, reset the wire in the trip mechanism and back across the field. Of course this was probably a 2 row planter. There was mention of hand cranking a tractor. I never had the experience (too young) but Allis-Chalmers WC's were notorious. As I recall, if the engine backfired, the crank wouldn't disengage and could break an arm. The one I remember did have an electric starter, dunno if it was a retrofit or not.

[Russ Filtz]

In addition to farming, these same type GPS units (feeding into specialized software) are used in the garbage industry to optimize compaction of landfills. The units display the new garbage as a color coded surface and changes color as the dozer makes his passes over it. After a predetermined number of runs the surface changes color so the operator knows that area is good to go. Reduces redundant movement of the dozer (actually called a landfill compactor). Been around the industry for several years now (10?).

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Curt, my neighbor calls that skip row planing. Thats what he did on his 9 acres of corn I mentioned earlier. Looks cool when you drive by!

Russ, I think that GPS is seriously integrated in dirt moving construction too.

Pat, that is good to know!

[Brent Leonard]

People actually use in-car GPS nav devices still??

JK.
My verizon Blackberry does a wonderful job (nav). No need for the TomTom and such.

[Al Willits]

While no where near as spendy as Steve and others, I've got about 2k worth of GPS/depth finders on my boat, I remember upgrading from LoranC to GPS and I'm happy with gps.

So I hope Pat is right and they keep GPS around for awhile.

Some how I just can't see hooking my phone up to the bow mount trolling motor and off we go....:D

Lowrance has just come out with a GPS auto pilot for the trolling motors, a upgrade over the auto pilot that would just keep direction, the newer version will run a course once laid in off the GPS...wonder if they know about GPS going down the tubes..:)

Al...who thinks/hopes they keep it around for awhile.