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Coles County, Illinois | Been planting 8 and harvesting 6 for almost 20 years. I'm running a 6620 so the cab is offset. You can easily get on the right rows when harvesting so that when picking 2 rows from one pass and 4 rows from another pass that the bulk rows are always right in front of you. I'm pretty impressed with Ravens Cruizer II Last Pass Mode with the Version 3.0 software. I'll be adding Smartsteer for next year and see how it goes. With A-B mode I can say Planting with it would have been an exercise in futility.
I bought a TeeJet 220 when they first came out around 2005. It had a patch antenna. The patch antenna couldn't receive very many satellites so when one satellite would go below the horizon the system would drift rather quickly. When a new satellite came up then it would drift back. That system was only good enough to get me on the right row for spraying after planting. It also only had A-B or Curved Modes. With these Modes the Line is set on the first pass. So over time, sat drift makes your position relative to that first pass less and less accurate.
The Cruizer II has a helix antenna. The helix antenna can receive data from more satellites as it can receive data from satellites lower on the horizon. When one gets too low and drops out then the system doesn't drift as quickly. The contribution of the recently dropped satellite to where the system thinks you are is less. The same thing occurs when another sat gets high enough for it's data to be considered in the position.
Where last pass mode comes in is cutting down the amount of drift that happens over time. Lets say you're planting a square 40. You set an A-B line when you start. By the time you're done that data is hours old. You've made several corrections for drift and if you're like me you've added some "pilot error" in your pass. Last pass mode only cares for where you where just a short time ago.
I'm not saying that WAAS systems are as good as Omni-Star or RTK but I can say that the newer WAAS systems are much more useful than just a few years ago. I've read in this forum that all WAAS systems are the same and I used to believe it. Maybe Raven has just caught up with the rest of the industry but just a software upgrade has improved the usefulness of my system.
Edited by Herbie56 11/20/2012 09:51
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Gudiance system?? planting 8 harvesting 6
