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901

It would be a good idea to have a ultra wideband system as a backup if this is so critical.

Archive: https://archive.today/ff4Cl

From the post:

>The solar storm that brought the aurora borealis to large parts of the United States this weekend also broke critical GPS and precision farming functionality in tractors and agricultural equipment during a critical point of the planting season, 404 Media has learned. These outages caused many farmers to fully stop their planting operations for the moment.

It would be a good idea to have a ultra wideband system as a backup if this is so critical. Archive: https://archive.today/ff4Cl From the post: >>The solar storm that brought the aurora borealis to large parts of the United States this weekend also broke critical GPS and precision farming functionality in tractors and agricultural equipment during a critical point of the planting season, 404 Media has learned. These outages caused many farmers to fully stop their planting operations for the moment.

(post is archived)

[–] • 6 pts 11mo

Specifically, some GPS systems were temporarily knocked offline. This caused intermittent connections and accuracy problems with “Real-Time Kinematic” (RTK) systems, which connect to John Deere “StarFire” receivers that are in modern tractors and agricultural equipment. RTK systems use GPS plus a stream of constantly-updating “correction” data from a fixed point on the ground to achieve centimeter-level positional accuracy for planting crops, tilling fields, spraying fertilizer and herbicide, etc.

According to updates from Landmark Implement, which owns John Deere dealerships in Kansas and Nebraska, the solar storm ruined the accuracy of RTK systems for many farmers using John Deere tractors. Similar systems in other brands of tractors have also been compromised, the dealer and farmers I spoke to said.

“Due to the way the RTK network works, the base stations were sending out corrections that have been affected by the geomagnetic storm and were causing drastic shifts in the field and even some heading changes that were drastic,” the dealership told farmers Saturday morning. “When you head back into these fields to side dress, spray, cultivate, harvest, etc. over the next several months, we expect that the rows won't be where the AutoPath lines think they are. This will only affect the fields that are planted during times of reduced accuracy. It is most likely going to be difficult—if not impossible—to make AutoPath work in these fields as the inaccuracy is most likely inconsistent.”

RTK systems are ground-based additions to the GPS system that increases the accuracy of your position determination. The RTK base stations were what was affected which threw off the centimeter level accuracy. Any sufficiently powerful device in the frequency range of the RTK base stations could cause this same accuracy issue, including physical obstructions and multi-path reflection interference by those objects. This is not a GPS satellite disruption!

John Deere builds shitty equipment. It got disrupted because it is shitty equipment. Don't buy John Deere shitty equipment. Problem solved.

Farmers have been planting for thousands of years. GPS was not ever needed to grow crops. This is a problem caused by reliance on unnecessary technology application rather than farming ability. Any farmer who needs GPS to farm is doing it wrong and if they buy John Deere, they will have many more issues even without a solar storm. The storm wasn't the problem here. It's JD and their shitty equipment they won't allow you to fix.

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[–] • 7 pts 11mo

Yeah, im fairly sure most of the people using systems like this are extremely large scale industrial farming. Not a typical farmer. If you think you need a gps controlled multi million dollar tractor to farm... well, maybe you should not be a farmer.

[–] • 3 pts 11mo

How else are we going to ship a gorillion tons of grain to africa so niggers can over-reproduce and flood White nations?

[–] • 4 pts 11mo

The nations of the world need to stop feeding the low IQ "useless eaters". The problem will work itself out in about 10-15 years. They either figure out how to provide for themselves or their birth rate drops quickly below replacement levels and the whole rest of the world is better off for it.

[–] • 1 pt 11mo

Wondering if they were even working Saturday to boot. I mean they don't work during spring storms, what's different about this?

[–] • 0 pt 11mo (edited 11mo)

When you are a farmer/rancher you work when you need to work. Sometimes its 20 hour days. Sometimes its 1 hour days. Planting seasons can really fuck you if you miss 3-4 days and your crops will suffer. It really depends. It is far more complicated (and sometimes more simple) than one would think.

However, there are also open source projects to build stuff like these "GPS" farm tools that are trying to make them more robust and.. well. Free(ish) as long as you are not a moron and willing to do the work. Despite what many people think, farmers and ranchers are far more intelligent than you would expect and a project like this would just be another tool in the belt.

There is something about self-reliance that seems to tend toward ingenuity and intelligence. Who would have thought that everything giving you everything without effort could possibly make your... Less capable?

To add a bit more to this. If you are not a "industrial farmer" and running your own land. You have to handle all of the business side of things too. Accounting, hiring/firing, planting schedules or breeding schedules, soil samples and amending the soil. Ordering for seeds/fertilizer. Despite what many people think. Farming/ranching is not as easy as you think. It takes long hours, hard work and small profit margins. All with little time off if ever if you cant get family or your neighbors to help you out.

One bad season can also wipe out all of your profit and if you don't have savings you will lose your land since you often have to borrow against your future crop/heard.

[–] • 0 pt 11mo

Well, they'll have a bit of time, maybe they can use some vision-based systems to follow the rows.

[–] • 1 pt 11mo

Maybe give jews a call and see if they have any farming equipment they could lend them? I mean, what could go wrong?

[–] • 1 pt 11mo

Other than them saying yes, and importing more rather than using existing equipment locked in storage, can't see an issue.