Hi chrismatt

Soren from LabcoMagic speaking.
The UFO II system uses Low frequency, 134KHz chips, these have the
longest reading distance on the market. Cards up to 15 cm. Coded chips up to 12cm.
We introduced two new antennas at http://www.fism.com in Stockholm.
With these antennas you will have reading distances of
the cards up to 23cm (Arm antenna) and up to 30cm (Body antenna).
You can subscribe to our mailing list here :
http://www.labcomagic.com/subscribe.htm
and get our newsletter about the new antennas.

Best Regards
Soren
http://www.labcomagic.com

Thank you, Soren, for that helpful info. Do you know when the new antennas will be available?

Also, does anyone know the frequency (KHz) of the chips used in the Fabrice Delaure version?

Thanks,
CM

I thought about doing a Smash & Stab type of effect like this. I'd put the tag inside of the knife handle or built into the base of the pedistl containing the spike. I wasn't sure if this has been done or not...

-Bryan Gilles

Please don't! The technology isn't 100% and you want something completely foolproof when doing a dangerous stunt like that.

Thanks for the disclaimer... Safety is always first! I'll remove that idea from my personal files..

-Bryan Gilles

I looked into this as well and could not find ultra thin tages in the 125kHz (LF) range. I would imagine that the tags used by Fabrice are also the HF (13.56 mhz vs 125 - 134 kHz) due to the thickness of the tags.

As far as I understood, the range improves (all things being considered) as you go to higher frequencies. The advantage of the 125kHz frequency is it's ability to penetrate water. The HF devices are better for metal situations (metal has interference properties at lower frequency that are less troublesome at higher frequency).

The "real world" ranges for passive (as compared to active) RFID is measured in inches, and not very many of them. The antenna to get the kind of ranges mentioned in this thread would have to be HUGE!

I'm interested in resurrecting the RFID thread if anyone else is interested. Speaking recently with Fabrice, he told me that "...splitting each and every card and glueing them back together is a real pain". I asked if he would be able to automate the process but said that machines seemed to destroy the chips associated with the RFID tags.

I didn't ask him, but many of the RFID readers are not able to read more than tag at a time. When there are two or more within range of the antenna, the reader gets confused. Anyone know if Fabrice addresses this particular "problem"?

Doug