Iphone GPS (basic)

[-cardi-]

Hi all, sorry if im repeating an old thread, perhaps someone can point me in the right direction.
Basically looking for a basic gps navigational app for my iphone, only looking for help to spread fertiliser 6m bout with and small amounts of spraying. Any suggestions? Or just take a leap and buy a basic patchwork or similar?
Whats about?
Thanks in Advance

 

[EddieB]

I haven’t used one and can’t endorse any of them, but there are a few phone apps for this.

 

[Bury the Trash]

For a narrow width like that a blobber would be better ...quicker acting and more accurate for the sprayer. Judging 6m with the spreader is easy.
just practice looking obliquely /side ways at the correct angle or put some tape or marks somehow on the cab a pillar etc. for your ' line of site ' consistency . iyswim.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

The best any phone app alone will give you is 1m accuracy. At that width you can do better by eye. You need dgps, something like EGNOS correction, to do any better. That'll give you about 50cm average accuracy and used kit (Patchwork Blackbox, Trimble Easi-Guide 250, Agricision OnTrack) is cheap.

 

[Robt]

Without an external Bluetooth GPS antenna . The internal GPS of an iPhone sat inside a tractor cab or Indeed on a quad moving at 8kph would be 5m max accuracy. You may get 1m accuracy if you are stationary

 

[Sheep]

What would the accuracy be like with an external GPS antenna? I would like circa 1m accuracy for spreading fertiliser on bare silage fields. We double overlap with the spreader anyway but it would be nice to have a guide to follow.

 

[Northern farmer]

Does the iPhone accept an external GPS signal? Wife's iPad does not but it could be because of no internal GPS on that model.

 

[farmerm]

Given my Strava traces often show the GPS position on my phone drifting into the next field never mind within 6m of the path I think blobbers would be much more useful!

 

[Mur Huwcun]

To the op as an experiment open google maps, stand in a field with a landmark such as a gate post and press the location icon. It will be forever hovering to find your position and then won’t be sure and will be hopping around

This is me sitting on sofa in kitchen……

 

[EddieB]

Am I right in thinking that you can run SOYL variable rate through an iPad? Does this require an external antenna I wonder? This must require some degree of accuracy.

 

[Northern farmer]

Am I right in thinking that you can run SOYL variable rate through an iPad? Does this require an external antenna I wonder? This must require some degree of accuracy.

What is their grid for variable rate? I'd assume variable rate being one of the least demanding applications. Auto-steer for drilling at one end, section control needing much higher accuracy than variable rate etc.

 

[SamN]

I use fieldbee free on a Samsung tablet using the integrated GPS. It's reports an accuracy of about 2.5m. I only use it for fun really to show where I've driven spreading dung and sometimes the tedder, it's useful for doing a cut in for mowing with an AB line, but wouldn't want to rely on it for guidance

 

[Bury the Trash]

even my 15 yr old son could judge 6m accurately by eye......back when he was 15.....

and with the visibilty and height of a modern tractor its even easier.

trying looking out of the window instead of at a screen, experience will soon make it easy peazee lemon squeezee.

a lot of these type things are just trends that lots of people have to have them and its supposed to make you think its better and you need one but like in that song lyric " it aint necessarily so...."

 

[drifter]

Am I right in thinking that you can run SOYL variable rate through an iPad? Does this require an external antenna I wonder? This must require some degree of accuracy.

Correct you can run variable rate through an ipad running isoyl, this has to be wifi + cellular which gives the gps chipset. Arguably ipad gps accuracy is not the best but is accurate enough for spreading. You could add something like BadElf Bluetooth GPS into the equation which we have done a few times. Some tractors are worse than others which i would put down to the amount of material used in the roof for sound deadening. Certainly newer ones give the most amount of hassle. People also forget that using an ipad in landscape mode puts the gps chip horizontal rather than vertical looking at the sky.

 

[drifter]

What is their grid for variable rate? I'd assume variable rate being one of the least demanding applications. Auto-steer for drilling at one end, section control needing much higher accuracy than variable rate etc.

Our grid for VR is 24mt, we can produce them using Hexazone which will give you roughly 49 hex's per ha, the trouble with this is that every hex has a rate, travelling at 16k it takes 4.4 seconds to cross the zone at which point the spreader is wanting to change rate again. Whilst most ag-tech has come on massively in the last 15 years its brain capacity sometimes leaves a lot to be desired, the majority GPS related sytems still have an inherant restriction built into them when it comes to variable rate applications, zone limits, rate limits, file number limits etc and simply cannot cope with higher accuracy applications.

 

[Northern farmer]

Our grid for VR is 24mt, we can produce them using Hexazone which will give you roughly 49 hex's per ha, the trouble with this is that every hex has a rate, travelling at 16k it takes 4.4 seconds to cross the zone at which point the spreader is wanting to change rate again. Whilst most ag-tech has come on massively in the last 15 years its brain capacity sometimes leaves a lot to be desired, the majority GPS related sytems still have an inherant restriction built into them when it comes to variable rate applications, zone limits, rate limits, file number limits etc and simply cannot cope with higher accuracy applications.

Thanks. I was not criticising your grid size but the earlier post that gave an impression that iPad could be fine for high accuracy tasks when it is capable for variable rate.