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Solar Storm Knocks Out Farmers' Tractor GPS Systems During Peak Planting Season
The accuracy of some critical GPS navigation systems used in modern farming have been "extremely compromised," a John Deere dealership told customers Saturday.
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. Landmark Implement first warned farmers about the problems Friday in a text message blast obtained by 404 Media: “Please be advised that there is a significant solar flare and space weather activity currently affecting GPS and RTK networks. It wasn't the common problem of the lines just not matching up, the GPS shading thought it was spot on to where it should be but a lot of the time it either left a gap or overlapped by as much as a few feet.
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