If you have looked at GPS guidance for your farm operation you are already aware of the many advantages this new technology has. When we started evaluating the options on the market we realized that the simple lightbar GPS guidance would just not work for our area. On our farm we often have to go around waterholes, bushes etc. so that you really need a birdseye view to determine where you have misses or overlaps.

After evaluating the more sophisticated GPS guidance systems, we wondered why we could not use our laptop as the display device. Almost any GPS device does provide positional information through a standard protocol, so understanding the data coming from the GPS and displaying it properly for agriculture GPS guidance should be all what is required.

To make a long story short, we went ahead and did exactly that. We created a program called FarmerGPS. It runs on a Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows XP or even Windows 98 Sec. Ed. based PC and connects to any GPS via a standard serial cable.

Over the past 4 years we added many features based on feedback from our customers.

So if you are looking to add GPS guidance to your farm operation in a very cost effective, yet feature rich way, read through the website or contact us!. You may also download a fully functional evaluation version of FarmerGPS. The evaluation version is limited to about 20 min of GPS receiver connectivity. If you have a laptop and a GPS device (NMEA 0183 protocol and connectivity to a laptop), go ahead and test for free. You may also test without a GPS receiver! Download FarmerGPS and select "simulation" mode. While simulation mode is not perfect, it gives you a good idea on how FarmerGPS works. All you need is a desktop PC (or laptop) with a Windows operating system.

FarmerGPS incl. birds-eye view, "light-bar" like directions, resolution change, sprayer on/off input, etc.

FarmerGPS will work with basically any GPS receiver providing NMEA 0183 positional output. FarmerGPS uses the RMC and GGA NMEA sentences.

The cost of a FarmerGPS system is much lower than many other solutions with less functionality. A typical FarmerGPS system consists of:

a laptop incl windows OS (about $ 600.-) 12V/110V converter for the laptop (about $ 30.-) Novatel GPS receiver 5 Hz incl. cable (about $ 700.-) Interface hardware for sprayer/seeder/etc. ( $110.-) USB to RS232 cable ( $40.-) mounting hardware ( $ 20.- - 50.-) FarmerGPS software ($ 349.-)

With a total cost of about $ 2000.- FarmerGPS has many more features than a $ 5000.- system. In addition the laptop priced into this system is often used for many other tasks in a farm business.

You could start with a standard GPS receiver provided it has a serial output and can be configured to use the NMEA protocol. Since these are standard options in many GPS devices (even your hunting or fishing GPS device) you may start with the one you already own. For basics all you need is a laptop, the GPS and the FarmerGPS software!