# GPS - which one to buy??



## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Looking for some opinions here, looking at purchasing a GPS, which one of the following:


Trimble E-Z Guide 250, with AG15 antenna
Raven Cruizer II, with Helix antenna
Outback S Lite, with antenna

Usage will be mainly, establishing lands while cutting hay (I know some people prefer cutting like NASCAR, making right hand turns only, but with my H&S X-rake lands work better for me), spreading fertilizer and lime. I can cut pretty straight from my years of planting corn, just would like to have my lands come out closer to even without 'points' more often than not.

I know the first two are more than double the Outback system.

Have all three in my cart at Amazon, just waiting for some opinions on which one and why, before one of them gets the opportunity of my charge card. And one more toy crossed off my list. 

Thanks in advance for your input.

Monetary donations will also be accepted, if you feel so inclined and want to give more than your 'two cents worth'.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

My only experience is with the Trimble 250 and while it was a decent unit it didn't work as well as I had hoped. I will be buying the Raven soon as I get a chance. The folks I've talked to with them absolutely love them.


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## rajela (Feb 15, 2014)

I just bought the Raven a few months ago so it is the only one I can speak about. It has worked good for me so far and is easy to set up and operate. I would like to upgrade to auto steer one day.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

You might want to check eBay for used ones. I bought a raven with helix antenna for $600. I'm not really clear how a GPS would help you cut hay better. We must cut differently as I don't under stand your right hand turn thing at all, but then maybe it's a pt mower thing? But I like my Raven. I've used it for planting hay. I'm going to use it for fertilizer this summer.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I bought the Raven 2 this past winter. I like it. No more guessing with the fertilize buggy or sprayer.

I have no experience with the other types.


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## RockyHill (Apr 24, 2013)

Our only experience is with the Raven Cruizer II (weather resistant model). We started with the patch antenna but our hills and tree lines needed the helix which works well. The most recent upgrade was the boom sense adapter so could turn on/off guidance with switch instead of touch screen -- that is a tad bit troublesome bouncing across fields.

Shelia


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## duramax (Dec 18, 2010)

I feel your pain, rather than to use gps for the lands, we bought two Vermeer TM1200 mowers. Now the points don't plug the mowers up. Been thinking GPS with these though, a lot of wasted time not mowing.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Only experience I have with Trimble is the CFX750 with auto steer, works well enough, most likely at some point in the future if we go big with GPS we'll switch to Agleader.

According to the guys from Goldigger, Trimbles have a nasty habit of losing signal but not letting you know right away, I've witnessed this myself when planting with auto steer all of the sudden the tractor wants to do whoop de do's and figure 8's while the screen claims to have good satellite signals, about the time you stop and wait a bit then it lets you know it lost signal. Paying an obscene amount of money to unlock it and getting a cellular modem for RTK would solve that.


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## hay-man (Oct 6, 2012)

On my second year with Raven II, love it! I use it for all things you mentioned, and it does help cutting hay, when you drive down the headland you don't have to guess where to dive in and hope to stay parallel with last cut just let the screen guide you and come out perfect on last pass!. Extremely useful for spraying and spreading fertilize which is why I bought it.


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## danwi (Mar 6, 2015)

I got an outback this spring ordered it a place in Iowa, cheapest price, it arrived in a couple of days and talked with the guy on the phone and was really helpful. Used it to spray roundup on hayfields with a 45 foot pulltype sprayer, used it in contour mode, it does take a little getting used to finding your spot when you turn around, but when you find it going across the field is easy. the one bad thing is when you are paying attention to the guideance you don't pay as much attention to the sprayer and had a couple of tips partially plug. A few people like the ones where you can color in the screen, outback doesn't do that.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I went with Agleader this spring.Sure is nice planting when dusty or driveing into the sun.It's been a learning experience like anything.

Running a tillage tracker on WASS I've noticed how much your A-B lines can move.If you stop for a hr and come back it can be 3' over.Or I've seen it move over a ft pass to pass,not often but it happens.It does have a nudge button you can hit to just slide your line over ,if you notice it.

Running planter tractor on a pd subscription satellite and its a lot more accurate,but cost more also.


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## pede58 (Oct 27, 2015)

I've run the outback for a couple of years now and works great for the spraying I do. Like the guy above bought it in Iowa, lights are plenty bright and easy to use, for the money I don't think you'll find one better I believe it was less then $600. Couple of faults I've found, it takes some time to power up and find sats and the couture mode doesn't function very well.


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## JRehberg (Oct 11, 2012)

We've used a Teejet Matrix 570 GS for the last two years and absolutely love it. I had previously used a friends Raven Cruizer and it was a great unit as well. After using both, the Teejet seemed a little more intuitive to me, but that's just me. Either one is a great unit. I would buy as much screen as you can, we almost pulled the trigger on the Teejet Matrix 430 but I got worried about the small screen and decided to spend a little more money for the 570. After two seasons of use it has been eye opening to realize how much I was over spraying with our old foamer set up (that barely worked). I'm hoping to upgrade to a Teejet Sprayer control (Radion) in a few years, that's another reason we went with the 570 GS, it's pretty much plug and play.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Thanks to all, I appreciate your input, thoughts, knowledge and experience. My indebtedness continues to grow to the contributing members of HT.

Have to admit, I was just a 'lurker' for too many years on HT. Anybody can give a product a one or five star rating, but "are they really using the product as you intend to use it?" is the 64 dollar question.

Nothing like asking (and getting) the man/woman opinion, who is actually using the product in a similar fashion that you plan on using it for.

I was leaning towards the Raven II and that is what helped melt my charge card today. Place the order, keeping America moving, circulating those un-backed greenbacks that Uncle Sam prints and prints and prints and then prints more. Nice thing about charge cards, seems like you didn't pay for (until the bill comes).

One of my sons ask me why now, being I am pretty good at guessing what tree to head for after I don't know, maybe a zillion years of farming the same fields. (I do tell my grandkids, Abe Lincoln is in my yearbook.). I said "in case I start getting forgetful or cut the tree down", plus I think I will get more accurate fertilizing and spraying.



duramax said:


> I feel your pain, rather than to use gps for the lands, we bought two Vermeer TM1200 mowers. Now the points don't plug the mowers up. Been thinking GPS with these though, a lot of wasted time not mowing.


One thing good about disc-bine (versus standard cutter bar), is that they do not plug as easy, with points. I'm glad I have one (NH 7220 w/rollers).

Larry


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I've always threatened to take the auto steer out of the planting tractor when we are done and use it in the mowing tractor, just never have as only covering 13 foot I drive pretty straight anyways. Main reason it's on the planting tractor is marker arms are the pits, the more you use em the more you get to fix em, at least the Yetter tri folds we have on the Hiniker that is.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

I know that cheaper is not always better...but I am trying to weight the benefit of paying 2x or more for the other systems as compared to the Outback S-Lite.

I don't know enough about them to know what to look for as far as differences. I will be using it for spraying (sparingly) small and irregular shaped fields, fertilizing, and seeding (with spreader, not a drill).

I guess, the easiest way for me to ask the question (since I am obviously leaning toward the less expensive one) is to ask what features the more expensive ($1000-$1500) models have that S-Lite would be lacking.

Thanks

73, Mark


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## rajela (Feb 15, 2014)

A screen that paints your previous coverage......


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## Bruce Hopf (Jun 29, 2016)

Do they make, a Hand Held GPS, for measuring acreage?


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Bruce Hopf said:


> Do they make, a Hand Held GPS, for measuring acreage?


Garmin has a hand held you can measure acres on.There are apps you can download into a phone also.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

rajela said:


> A screen that paints your previous coverage......


That would be a nice feature or a not-so-nice-not-to-have feature. Gotta decide if it is a $600-nice feature. Thanks



swmnhay said:


> Garmin has a hand held you can measure acres on.There are apps you can download into a phone also.


I downloaded the FarmSprayer app on my eyefone6. It works OK and can vary widths, set AB line, paint the coverage, pause the system to go fill the tank again, etc... I have used if for spraying a little and spreading fertilizer. It works about as well as the amount that it cost ($5.00 or so). It flat-out eats the phone battery. I have to leave my phone plugged-in when spraying with my ranger. I think it uses a butt-load of data also. Neither of those problems are worthy of the upgrade to a dedicated lightbar, but the fact that it is not smooth; it is jumpy and (depending on speed) updates every 30 feet or so. All in all, it is better than a sharp stick in the eye, but not much. If I had my druthers...druther have my $5.00 back.

73, Mark


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

You could do one of those "fund me" things glass, I'd pitch in a buck (on a fishing line like the insurance commercial) for your review.......


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## Against the Grain (Apr 12, 2016)

Has anyone here tried the AgriBus-NAVI app? 
I tried it on my phone but the internal gps just wasn't up to the job. Got a friend (computer guru) to order a tablet and external antenna so we'll see how that goes. 
I like the way it colors in the worked area and it seems easy to use. 
Anyone else have any experience with it?


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

We sprayed with 60 foot boom .. I spray twice out around the whole field. Then I usually start along the big side the way I plantain and go back and forth past bypass until I am done at the small side. Now if you have a square box field it's no problem but many of our Fields finish up with a double dog leg or something like that . So you have to Envision, this double dog leg he's going to be somewhere in the middle of the last section it's going to be a hundred and twenty feet from the Hedgerow. No you can't possibly Envision it but if you've painted a picture of what you've done so far you can perfectly see that part of the field coming up and spray it appropriately. So for me the feature that paints what I've already done pays off every time I use it couldn't do without it. When I bought my first Trimble GPS the head videos that went with it that would help you to learn how to operate it and I remember the first thing he told you the video is you're probably program to this straight line mode 90% of what you do will be in that mode well boy. That guy never farmed where I farm in central Pennsylvania 95% of what I do requires a Mode called freeform


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

Edit :that guy.. Not black guy...... thank God my autosteer works better than my auto type


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## rajela (Feb 15, 2014)

Another feature that is nice is the boundary record on the raven II. I have learned just how big all my fields are. Most of them I was pretty close at guessing the acreage but a few I was off on. It will also show how many acres you have covered when your spraying or planting. It figures your width that you entered by the length you have travel and tells you how many acres you have covered. Last time I was spraying I have enough spray to cover 20 acres I ran out of spray and I was like what the hell I didn't get any where near 20 acres but the machine said I had covered 17.9 acres so I was pretty close to my 20 acres.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

endrow said:


> Edit :that guy.. Not black guy...... thank God my autosteer works better than my auto type


Fixed it for you


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

On our irregular fields with terraces I have become addicted to the painted screen. I know how far I am from making a turn.

*If you buy a magnetic helix antenna, do not leave it on the tractor when not in use. The replacement is expensive. Mine arrived yesterday.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Tim/South said:


> On our irregular fields with terraces I have become addicted to the painted screen. I know how far I am from making a turn.
> 
> *If you buy a magnetic helix antenna, do not leave it on the tractor when not in use. The replacement is expensive. Mine arrived yesterday.


Tim,

Have to agree, the irregular fields, with spreading fertilizer, painted screen .

Have to as about the replacement, stolen?? or other factor(s) for removal suggestion.

Larry


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## rajela (Feb 15, 2014)

Tim/South said:


> On our irregular fields with terraces I have become addicted to the painted screen. I know how far I am from making a turn.
> 
> *If you buy a magnetic helix antenna, do not leave it on the tractor when not in use. The replacement is expensive. Mine arrived yesterday.


Did some one steal it or what???


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

It came lose some how. Not sure how.

Could have been someone trying to steal it and found it was attached into the cab by the cord and left it dangling.

I was loading hay in a leased field and left for lunch. I returned and began loading hay and noticed the cord inside the cab moving. Too late as the rear tire had disassembled it.

Antena and cord = $565.00



r82230 said:


> Tim,
> 
> Have to agree, the irregular fields, with spreading fertilizer, painted screen .
> 
> ...





rajela said:


> Did some one steal it or what???


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

The EZ-Guide 250's are well worth the money. I've run an old-style lightbar with just a tiny LCD screen for setup, and the EZ-Guide 250 is light years better... has the "paint as ya go" feature and it's VERY handy. The old lightbar, they just ran it in "adaptive curve" mode all the time, because the setup was rather byzantine. "Adaptive curve" is okay, BUT, it tends to "multiply" your errors over the course of doing a field. In a rectangular field, it's quite noticeable when you finish, as you'll be overlapping the field edges in places and 30 feet from the edge in others. The "adaptive curve" mode is VERY handy for small, irregular shaped fields, however.

Most of the time I run it in "A-B line" mode. I spray the turn row ends of the field, then spray down one edge, setting up an A-B line. Hit "enter" for the A point once you're going straight and properly centered on the first pass (end of the boom on the field edge) and then hit enter again to set the "B" point once you're getting fairly near the other end of the field, again making sure the boom end is on the edge of the field and you're properly centered on your first pass. After that, it simply snaps a center line spaced just like the last one, only over how many ever feet you programmed in for the passes to be apart.

The "paint the field as you go" feature is handy, because it not only shows where you've sprayed, it shows any gaps by leaving that part of the field green instead of painting it yellow. It also shows overlaps by painting the field from yellow to brown when parts are sprayed twice, like angled field ends where approaching at a right angle means part of the pass is sprayed twice to get everything sprayed. It allows you to minimize overlaps while still getting everything sprayed.

A Trimble EZ-Guide 250 can be had for about $600-700 bucks. It comes with a little 'sugar cube" antenna, which might be good enough for what you're doing. If you want a better antenna, you can get one for a few hundred bucks more. Chuck's old antenna was still good, so he used it with the new system-- works fine.

You can get used units off Fleabay, etc. Chuck's first lightbar was a used unit, and it worked for quite a few years. It was an older one when he bought it and the technology has moved on, and it would have cost more to fix than it was worth, IF parts could even be gotten-- the dealer we got the EZ-Guide from told us basically that if it had broke the year before, he could probably have still gotten parts (they were discontinued) but that when it DID break he just couldn't get parts for them anymore, and since we were in the middle of spraying season and had to get it done, he decided to just spring for the 250. It works great, but won't support autosteer (which isn't a bad thing IMHO-- autosteer is for wussies IMHO LOL)

If I were you, I'd look for a good used unit on Fleabay or something and go from there.

Later! OL J R


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## rajela (Feb 15, 2014)

I have heard about these $500.00 or $600.00 EZ-Guide 250 or RavenII units but never seen one. I looked the web over for about a year and never seen one of them unicorns.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

rajela said:


> I have heard about these $500.00 or $600.00 EZ-Guide 250 or RavenII units but never seen one. I looked the web over for about a year and never seen one of them unicorns.


Me too neither!!! 

Stopped at my local fertilizer supplier. Seems that they are getting ready to upgrade their stuff and will have some hand-me-downs available in a week or two for a C-note or two.   Didn't think to ask what brand and/or if they paint the field.

It doesn't pay me to get in a hurry with purchases. I was hunting a littlefoot-type spreader for a couple of years and bought a fert buggy instead this week.  Next day was at coffee shop talking about it and a guy (same guy that sold/gave me the 15' batwing for $400) says "I got a (described a littlefoot) spreader in my barn taking up space. If you want it, you can have it...it's in my way." :huh: I conversed that the only drawback is getting the fert in a different wagon and shoveling it into the spreader. He says "I've got a hydraulic auger that's in the way too; bring the truck and I'll load you up".  
So, the deals on the spreader have moved the lightbar WAY up on the wish list. If I can get the lightbar for a C-note, something else may float to the top of the list sooner than expected.

Ifn I smile much more this week, Honey is going to get suspicious.

73, Mark


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## AaronQ (Feb 25, 2013)

remember the days when you had to line up with a tree at the end of the field to make a row relatively straight?

our guys dont even want to leave the yard anymore unless something has gps in it.

For seeding and stuff its nearly a nessecity but i have to admit the thing i like it in the most is the 9770 hesston, 16 foot swath and you roll along at 9 or 10 mile an hour no problem and at the end of the day your not tired like you used to be.

we're setting up the raking tractor with it too. hope to try a set of tandem balers w/ it rigged to see how it works all the way down the operation from start to finish.

Someone mentioned something about WAAS on trimble and having to nudge it over. my neighbor was having that trouble in his intellesteer on a new holland four wheel drive this spring. like huge nudges to get it inline. moved to the next field across the road and same thing, any ideas?


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## AaronQ (Feb 25, 2013)

and for what its worth to the OP, you get what you pay for when it comes to GPS and guidance, WAAS in trimble or raven is decent for being free, the greenstar free version called SF1 is about 946 times better for the same price. thats having used both on the same field withing 2 hours of each other.

but buying a green receiver, harness, wheel and display for one piece of iron you could probably outfit the whole farm in raven for the same price.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

rajela said:


> I have heard about these $500.00 or $600.00 EZ-Guide 250 or RavenII units but never seen one. I looked the web over for about a year and never seen one of them unicorns.


Call Rochester New Holland in Rochester, Indiana. They have a dealership for the Trimble EZ-Guide systems in their old building, when they built a new building. They can probably set you up about as cheap as you're gonna get.

When Chuck bought his EZ-Guide 250 a couple years ago, he bought the base unit and a couple ram mounts for about $700 bucks or thereabout. The ram mounts were about $40 each IIRC. He used his old antenna with the new unit.

One other thing-- if you live in a cold climate, don't store those things in the shop. Always box them up at the end of the season and put them in closet in the house. The extreme cold of remaining in a tractor over the winter in an unheated shop or barn is very hard on them, especially in spring when the weather starts getting damper and the temperature frequently swings from high to low and back again.

Later! OL J R


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Tim/South said:


> It came lose some how. Not sure how.
> 
> Antena and cord = $565.00


Makes more sense, I have knocked mine off with a tree limb (that branch has since 'kissed' the ground).

Thanks for the update (I am going to be more aggressive with the old chain saw this winter).

Larry


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

I have a few trees bordering one field I own and a couple of the neighbor's. Most are forest along at least one side. I bought a pole saw years ago and took it out figuring that if I worked a couple hours each day for several I would have this side of a field trimmed up. A couple hours the first day and all the limbs were on the ground. Now I have the grapple so clean up goes faster also.


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## broadriverhay (Jun 13, 2014)

I bought the REMAN Raven Cruizer II with a Helix antenna about a month ago. Only one I have used but I really like it. Same warranty as a new one. Nance Tractor in McConnells SC.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

broadriverhay said:


> I bought the REMAN Raven Cruizer II with a Helix antenna about a month ago. Only one I have used but I really like it. Same warranty as a new one. Nance Tractor in McConnells SC.


Roundabout price? If you dont mind to tell..


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## broadriverhay (Jun 13, 2014)

$1484.


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## BROWNT (Jul 19, 2015)

anybody have a cruiser ii say that the memory is full? what do I do?


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