Recently I obtained a Hillingdon Community Services card which doubles
as a Library user's card. And put it into the same card wallet as my
Oyster card - in which I also keep my bank card. Suddently my Oyster
card stopped working on trains and buses, and even the Heathrow
Connect portable validators wouldn't recognise it - to considerable
embarrasment. The culprit was the Hillingdon Community Services card -
which seems to use the same technology as Oyster and was causing a
confict. An irritation 'cos now I have to keep them in separated. CJB.

In message
CJB wrote:

Recently I obtained a Hillingdon Community Services card which doubles
as a Library user's card. And put it into the same card wallet as my
Oyster card - in which I also keep my bank card. Suddently my Oyster
card stopped working on trains and buses, and even the Heathrow
Connect portable validators wouldn't recognise it - to considerable
embarrasment. The culprit was the Hillingdon Community Services card -
which seems to use the same technology as Oyster and was causing a
confict. An irritation 'cos now I have to keep them in separated. CJB.

Yup, I have the same problem with my Southampton old codgers bus pass.

Paranoia hint for people like David Hansen, if you've a new passport with a
chip in and are worried about it being remotely scanned, keep an Oyster card
in with it.

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail
Photo galleries at http://graeme-wall.fotopic.net/

On Jan 29, 10:44*am, CJB wrote:
Recently I obtained a Hillingdon Community Services card which doubles
as a Library user's card. And put it into the same card wallet as my
Oyster card - in which I also keep my bank card. Suddently my Oyster
card stopped working on trains and buses, and even the Heathrow
Connect portable validators wouldn't recognise it - to considerable
embarrasment. The culprit was the Hillingdon Community Services card -
which seems to use the same technology as Oyster and was causing a
confict. An irritation 'cos now I have to keep them in separated. CJB.

A former colleague had similar trouble with his Oyster card and his
season ticket for a football club - Fulham, IIRC.
I think this problem's only going to become more prevalent over the
next few years.

CJB wrote:
Recently I obtained a Hillingdon Community Services card which doubles
as a Library user's card. And put it into the same card wallet as my
Oyster card - in which I also keep my bank card. Suddently my Oyster
card stopped working on trains and buses, and even the Heathrow
Connect portable validators wouldn't recognise it - to considerable
embarrasment. The culprit was the Hillingdon Community Services card -
which seems to use the same technology as Oyster and was causing a
confict. An irritation 'cos now I have to keep them in separated. CJB.

I had the same problem with a new Barclaycard which had 'PayPass'
contactless tech built into it.



I've always kept my Oyster in the same wallet as my other cards and loose
change - it's just so easy just to take the wallet out of my pocket and bash
it onto an Oyster reader, meaning I don't have to faff about trying to
retrieve the Oyster and its own wallet.



I never had any trouble (unless the wallet was full of change, which blocked
the signals) until the new credit card arrived. It just plain refuses to
register on an Oyster reader, even when I just have the credit card and the
Oyster card in the standard issue plastic Oyster wallet.



I was going to contact Barclaycard to ask whether I could have a card
without PayPass, but after recalling previous experiences dealing with their
customer services I decided against it...



Net result: Barclaycard have lost my business to AmEx, and I get the bonus
of a credit card company that don't treat their customers with contempt.



I do wonder though what will happen as more and more debit/credit cards get
contactless tech - will they interfere with each other, and not just with
Oyster cards?

On Jan 29, 11:33*am, "Gretchen Lauss" wrote:

I do wonder though what will happen as more and more debit/credit cards get
contactless tech - will they interfere with each other, and not just with
Oyster cards?

There are two basic maybe two effects he

- Cards stored together disrupt the collection of power by all of
them.

- But, if more than one of those cards collects enough power to
operate, the terminal then has to use the anti-collision mechanism
specified by the standard (ISO 14443 in the case of Oyster and bank
payment cards - and also for ITSO cards) in order to identify all the
operating cards, send the ones that it doesn't want to communicate
with to sleep, and then carry out its transaction.

Of course, if only one card collects enough power to operate, and it
is not the right one, that creates a different problem. And if the
right one starts up and then another starts up later, that can also
disrupt the transaction.

And the terminal does not implement the anti-collision function...

On 29 Jan, 14:31, ticketyboo wrote:
On Jan 29, 11:33*am, "Gretchen Lauss" wrote:



I do wonder though what will happen as more and more debit/credit cards get
contactless tech - will they interfere with each other, and not just with
Oyster cards?

There are two basic maybe two effects he

- Cards stored together disrupt the collection of power by all of
them.

- But, if more than one of those cards collects enough power to
operate, the terminal then has to use the anti-collision mechanism
specified by the standard (ISO 14443 in the case of Oyster and bank
payment cards - and also for ITSO cards) in order to identify all the
operating cards, send the ones that it doesn't want to communicate
with to sleep, and then carry out its transaction.

Of course, if only one card collects enough power to operate, and it
is not the right one, that creates a different problem. And if the
right one starts up and then another starts up later, that can also
disrupt the transaction.

And the terminal does not implement the anti-collision function...

I have a Smartlink (similar to Oyster) card for PATH in New Jersey.
It works fine with my Oyster card next to it, but the Oyster will
never read unless I take the Smartlink card away. Not too much of a
problem in this case, since I'm seldom going to want to use both on
the same day, but it could be a real problem as these cards become
more common if you need to carry several around with you, and they
interfere with each other. Clearly they don't have to do this, as the
Smartlink readers will quite happily ignore the Oyster card.

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:44:17 -0800, CJB wrote:


embarrasment. The culprit was the Hillingdon Community Services card -
which seems to use the same technology as Oyster and was causing a
confict. An irritation 'cos now I have to keep them in separated.

This is going to start happening more and more as various other
organisations start using non contact smart cards.

The people who make the 'access control' system at my work have said
they want to replace the mag-strip readers with MiFare Classic readers
and replace all our cards. Oyster is Mifare Class - so the door reader at
work will one day cause any near by Oyster card to respond as well as the
'proper' access card, with the system probably objecting when it gets
responses from two cards instead of one.

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:31:42 -0800, ticketyboo wrote:


- But, if more than one of those cards collects enough power to operate,
the terminal then has to use the anti-collision mechanism specified by
the standard (ISO 14443 in the case of Oyster and bank payment cards -
and also for ITSO cards) in order to identify all the operating cards,
send the ones that it doesn't want to communicate with to sleep, and
then carry out its transaction.

My experience with having a (new) Singapore CEPAS ezlink in my wallet is
an Oyster terminal says 'multiple cards presented' and then won't
continue until you remove the other cards from it's field so it only sees
one.

And the Singapore card has a better antenna - I discovered that the LU
gates were still getting upset - I had removed my oyster from my wallet
and was placing it on the reader to open the gates - but as I walked
through the gates beeped. It dawned on me later, the Oyster pad must have
been getting a response from the Singapore CEPAS card as I walked through
the gate - at range of over 20cm between my hip pocket and the Oyster
reader pad. (The Oyster card being my my hand or back in my shirt pocket
by this stage).

On Jan 29, 10:44*am, CJB wrote:
Recently I obtained a Hillingdon Community Services card which doubles
as a Library user's card. And put it into the same card wallet as my
Oyster card - in which I also keep my bank card. Suddently my Oyster
card stopped working on trains and buses, and even the Heathrow
Connect portable validators wouldn't recognise it - to considerable
embarrasment. The culprit was the Hillingdon Community Services card -
which seems to use the same technology as Oyster and was causing a
confict. An irritation 'cos now I have to keep them in separated. CJB.

And if you bothered to read the user information when you got the
oyster card it tells to do EXACTLY that - keep it away from other
cards.

--
Nick

martin wrote:
On Jan 29, 10:44 am, CJB wrote:
Recently I obtained a Hillingdon Community Services card which doubles
as a Library user's card. And put it into the same card wallet as my
Oyster card - in which I also keep my bank card. Suddently my Oyster
card stopped working on trains and buses, and even the Heathrow
Connect portable validators wouldn't recognise it - to considerable
embarrasment. The culprit was the Hillingdon Community Services card -
which seems to use the same technology as Oyster and was causing a
confict. An irritation 'cos now I have to keep them in separated. CJB.

A former colleague had similar trouble with his Oyster card and his
season ticket for a football club - Fulham, IIRC.
I think this problem's only going to become more prevalent over the
next few years.

I keep my Oyster and my work pass together. My work barriers can cope
fine with them together, but TFL barriers can't and I have to separate them.

Is my work too lenient or is TFL too strict?