Solar Cycle 25

Solar Cycle 25, the current solar cycle, has shown to be of much greater magnitude than predicted and in the spring, this resulted in phenomena known as the Northern Lights.

The peak of Cycle 25 is expected to be between December, 2024 and May, 2025. Events with extreme ionospheric activity are to be expected, which may result in: 

1. Difficulty achieving and maintaining a fixed or converged position.

2. Reduced accuracy; position shifts or jumps.

Specifically, RTK and TerraStar®-X correction sources are affected. These technologies are built on the assumption that the base station (network) and the rover experience similar ionospheric interference. However, during events of extreme ionospheric activity there can be significant local differences in interference impacting each, even when only half a mile apart. 

The issues seen can occur with any brand or model of receiver. Ag Leader is proud the GPS 7500 is setting a very high standard for withstanding these extreme conditions. Less than a handful of issues have been reported for the thousands of systems running RTK or TerraStar-X this Spring. 

Ag Leader and NovAtel® continue to further improve our products. New firmware for GPS 7000 and GPS 7500 was released in June, 2024. There are ongoing efforts to further improve the TerraStar correction services, specifically TerraStar-X. 

Note: TerraStar-C PRO is built on different technology than TerraStar-X and RTK as it does not use local ionospheric corrections. This results in extended, non-instant, convergence and reconvergence times, but also means TerraStar-C PRO is impacted less by events with extreme ionospheric activity. During these events, a fully converged TerraStar-C PRO position will, in most cases, be less affected than a TerraStar-X or RTK position.

What to Do:

 All GPS 7500 users, please update to the latest GPS 7500 firmware v7.09.01.

TerraStar-X users, contact Ag Leader Support when performance is adversely impacted from the peak of Cycle 25, as possible mitigation can be offered by a temporary switch to TerraStar-C Pro. (At the disadvantage of increased convergence and reconverge time.)  

For additional technical details, please follow this link to our Knowledgebase article.