Combines TR99 Owners

[NHD]

I have a TR-99, my first. I have had TR-98's'97's,'96's, and even '75's.The TR-99 is the best by far, even though some of it is covenience and ease of operation. I have the yield monitor w_GPS and have had for 3 years.The TR-99 with it's wider clean grain elevator and much improved bubble up auger will handle about 2475 b_h of high yielding corn where the TR-98 would only handle about 2200 b_h. The limiting facor on combine capacity is the clean grain elevating system. It's no fun to have the whole shoe including the cleaning fan to be full of clean corn. There is no warning other than grain loss may start to go up before it gets all overloaded. The monitor doeshave a problem weighing all of the corn at high volumes. The bubble up sump fills up and the grain can't all hit the sensing plate correctly. Ag leader has an TR-99 elevator in there shop experimenting. Anyway the new bubble-up auger system works great. Be sure to not run the seperator with the bubble-up down. We use Maurer bin extensions and thebin fills evenly, 300-325 bu.I moved the Ag leader box closer to my eyes by about 8" so I can read it better-bifocalswork best when you read at a normal distane from your eyes. Also not having to extend your arm way out helps when punching the keys.Try to get the WAAS GPS reciever too. It will assure GPS signal any where. The signal has just recently been unscrambled by the govenment.I like the electric concave adjusting too.The header tilt guage is neat too. The unloading auger is faster and I have always liked the entire unloading system compared tothe others.Horsepower and fuel economy are the greatest!You can get an optional round bar concave extension that is fastened directly to the concave like the older combines. I really like that too. We had no filling up with bean stems or corn shucks.We use double fan chaff spreaders. They spread the chaff that comes out on the sides of the shoe better.I have harvested wheat, malt barly, oats,corn and soybeans so far, with no problems.our machine has 489 hours on it since last Aug. with no problems so far. We use a '30 ftflex platform and an 8 row corn head. I wish I had one of the new platforms w_full lengthfingers in the auger.All in all the TR-99 is the best buy and the Cadillac of them all.

 

[2rotorsrule]

Thanks a lot! So is the GPS easy to learnIJ Worth the investmentIJ Anybody else have praise or bad to say about TR99's and their GPS

 

[scooter]

I agree the WAAS is the way to go. I am using Omni differntial and love it ( except the annual fee ). Had hoped it would drop and not have to make the move to GPS. Ag leader has a new GPS 1000, reetail about $1200 which will work with all AG leader monitors ( includes NH ). Accuracy with WAAS apx 6 ft. looks good- from a very good company. Most likely not accurate enough for parellel swathing, but plenty good enough for yield mapping. Regard- is it worth itIJ I do not know. I have somefields yield mapped since 1994. I am not really sold on it. The cost may not be greater than the benefits. But that is changing. A good WAAS reciever for $1200 without any annual fees helps. Software for the farmer is probably should look at EASIMap. Ted Macy was a mover in this industry. He started Agris ( called something else then ). Been a consultant to JD and now began a company called Mapshots ( you can check it out on the internet ). His creditblity is first class. Farmworks has a lot of farmer users, but Ted believes in open architechture in software, and will aattempt to intigrate with other companies. He has tried to get companies to adopt a common info exchage, which has yet to happen, but needs to. Precision is getting cheaper and easier. I hope this helps.

 

[2rotorsrule]

Yup, thanks guys for you inputs. I think in the next few years we'll be going to some GPS

 

[NHD]

I think GPS based yield mapping is wellworth it.We use it to overlay soil tests, drainage(tile) maps, variety planting maps etc.It has been the best sales tool to convince landlords to invest in ferilizer, drain tile,and soil conserving practices.Seed companies, custom sprayer operators, ferilizer people don't lke seeing what really happened in the fields. Using marks you can identify lots of things that you can show the farmer about his fields. I'm referring to custom wheat harvestWe always map the terraces for them as well as wet spots, terrace blow outs, weed patchesetc. Actually the guy operating the combine knows more about the actual field conditions than the owner or farmer.On or own fields I want to know whats going on in all parts of the field. In summary, yes!!! the GPS yield monitor has paid for itself many times over and we know exactly whats going on in all parts of the field.Yield monitors are very user friendly and the data collection is all recorded on a data card easily downloaded to a PC.We have our soil test-crop consultant guy make our maps. We do not let the guy that sells any imputs make recommendations.