Electro-magnetic daughter?

Jolly_Roger

My daughter purchased a one-day travel card for use in Central London. It worked perfectly the first few times, then failed to open any gates on the Underground. Her friends then gave her their travel cards, which worked perfectly, but each time she used them the cards would not work!
Anybody else hear of such a strange thing?
Is she overly electro-magnetic?

Sagz_2

Jolly_Roger wrote: »

My daughter purchased a one-day travel card for use in Central London. It worked perfectly the first few times, then failed to open any gates on the Underground. Her friends then gave her their travel cards, which worked perfectly, but each time she used them the cards would not work!
Anybody else hear of such a strange thing?
Is she overly electro-magnetic?

Yup, me!

I have trouble with hotel key-cards, rail tickets and the such - and the longest I've ever been able to wear a watch without it stopping is about 3 weeks.

superscaper

No she's not "overly electro magnetic". She probably picks up static charge a lot more easily than others (the same thing as rubbing a balloon on your head). This could be as simple as the type of clothing she wears. The static discharge could possibly destroy and/or corrupt/interfere with reading of the chip. Even being "overly electro magnetic" if it were possible would have little effect on an RFID chip.

It may be possible for EM interference from something she's carrying swamping the radio of the card reader but not from her own body as the frequency of RFID is in the megahertz to gigahertz range. I don't know what frequency London Underground use but it may be possible if she's carrying a mobile and/or wi fi device to interfere.