On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 21:21:14 +0000, Dave Newt wrote:

Kai wrote:

This is funny: "Because the Oyster card is contactless, customers only need
to touch the cardreaders with their Oyster cards as they pass through ticket
gates at London Underground or National Rail stations or board a bus. "

If they are contactless, then whey do the customers need touch the
cardreaders?

They originally said you could keep it in your pocket and sail through
the gates, but you can't! So they then changed it to the above wording.

However, you can leave it in your bag and wave your bag over the reader
(I have done it).

I think they are just overstating the case so that people don't hold it
six inches above the reader and then complain that it doesn't work.

The reason that you need to be very close is that the cards
have no internal power source, they get all their power from
electromagnetic radiation from the reader. And the reader
cannot send out very strong signals because that would
interfere with other equipment.

greetings,

Ernst Lippe