When using a John Deere smart antenna with Ditch Assist, the Ditch Assist GPS cable will power the unit and pull the required position information directly into the Control Module – the GPS does not need to be connected to the tractor or to the GreenStar Display.
- With the GPS antenna connected to your GreenStar Display, click on the menu button and select the StarFire option:
- Click on the Serial Port tab. Select 38,400 under Baud Rate, and toggle the Output Rate until either 5Hz or 10Hz is selected (if the 10Hz option is greyed out or not present then select 5Hz). Check the boxes next to GGA and VTG. Exit the menu, power down the GPS. The settings will be saved in the receiver so you shouldn’t need to repeat this again.
IMPORTANT: John Deere GPS antennas running firmware version 2015-1 (the spring 2015 update) will not output elevation data correctly, meaning that Ditch Assist will show either an elevation value of 0, or a very long string of numbers, and the value will not update. This is a known error in the John Deere firmware, and was corrected in version 2015-2 (fall 2015 update). Please make sure you update to the latest firmware version if you experience this issue.