I'll pop the tech cherry here... need OUTBACK guru

[cowboycorn]

I've run OUTBACK guidance products for some time now. Got my first "S" lightbar secondhand to get my feet wet. Take baby steps and have had E=drive for several years, first with "S", then "S2", and have now upgraded to STS for mapping for customers. There seems to be a glitch with the Fieldnotes software, at least that's what I am told. And they don't appear to be in any hurry to remedy it. About half the maps get printed in hectares and half in acres. What is printed in acres is a nicele shaded area map, but what is in hectares is just fine green lines. The green lines save ink for sure, but the "hectares" glitch is annoying. I am far from a puter programmer, so no in house remedy. Anyone else run the OUTBACK platform of guidance products?

[MoJeeper™]

I can't help ya, I've never been around any outback stuff. Thats a weird glitch to have.

[Dave-ECIA]

Wanna email the files?? I can throw them in my FarmWorks package and see what you have???

Agee with Trent , that glitch is weird. Any chance you messes with settings between fields?

[RickNCMD]

Have you tried getting the most current updates from thier website for the stuff you are using. One good thing about Outback, they are generous with upgrades.

[Dave-ECIA]

Now that I think about this more, i would be willing to bet it a spacial orientation issue.

Thinking of the hectares, out back may see the head width in metric units. Say you are running a 30 foot head. You input 30, but outback is looking for width in centimeters, so it thinks you told it to use a 30cm head.

One way to verify this, do the coverage lines look about 10% of the field? Another thing would be yield, is it unusually high in the hectare fields??

[cowboycorn]

Sorry I didn't get back to any of the replies till now.

I originally set the console up before starting. It asks for U.S. or International (metric) units. I pushed U.S., and have gone back several times to check to see if it defaulted to metric. Nope. I can do two fields in a day, and I have a 50/50 chance that one will print out in hectares and one in acres.

I thought at first it was only when we used the perimiter function that it would be in acres, that didn't pan out either. More often that not, I rely on the "acres done" by my Raven. It has been far more accurate than the OUTBACK IMHO.

I am computer challenged enough that I may or may not be able to send Dave a file. I will try, but don't hold your breath.

Thanks,

[duaneinnd]

I have talked to Outback about their desktop software program and was told that there will be a major upgrade but was not told when. Which means could be never.

The program has its limitations. I have not tried to import any of that data into any other software program either.

[Dave-ECIA]

Cowboy, you get anything figured out on your issue?? I don't have anything more to add, but was wondering about it.

[cowboycorn]

I bitched again the other day while calling them for another issue. The original thumg drive issued with my STS came apart, so I just bought another 8 gig thumb drive, and the console did not recognize it for exporting data. The say Scandisk is one of the few makers that are compatable with the format. Would have been nice to know beforehand. the manual just says stick any thumbdrive stick in and it will format it as it exports.

Anyway, I complained just one more time and Stan the Tech sent me this below in an email, saying someone else had tried it and it worked for them. It's a workaround, but hey, if it can be tricked in a workaround, why the hell can't the software be fixed? I'll try it this week before I come home to the puter. I took Monday off cause the A/C compressor is out, Deere is off on Labor Day, so I took off.

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Sts job files are being exported from the Sts into FieldNotes and displaying in hectares

Please see the attachment. Both FieldNotes windows are of the same job sent in from a customer who is submitting his job coverage to the local government office. The job on the left is how the file was sent to me. The job on the right is after I performed the following "workaround":

Import the desired job from the USB thumb drive.
Once the job is open, in the Jobs menu, press New to open a new job.
Press the Export button and select the desired job.
If the system at any time asks if you wish to overwrite an existing job, select YES.
Wait for the led on the USB thumb drive to stop flashing before removing the drive.
Files can then be imported into FieldNotes as a new job in the "Transfer Job to PC" menu.

This "workaround" was successful for 5 of the customer's job files.