User guide

29
About Coercivity
Coercivity is a property of the magnetic stripe material on the card. It measures
how difficult it is to change the polarity or alignment of magnetic media. (A
higher coercivity requires more energy to encode and is more resistant to external
magnetic fields.)
The coercivity is a system-wide decision: The magnetic stripe readers which will
read the cards encoded by the printer are likely to require a specific coercivity
value. Card stock is purchased to match that coercivity value.
The ISO 7811 magnetic stripe specification (IAT) for three-track encoding
provides two choices for coercivity:
• High Coercivity (HiCo) 150 mA
• Low Coercivity (LoCo) 25 mA
• The JIS 6302 Type II specification (NTT) for single-track encoding provides
three coercivity choices:
• 50 mA (NTT 1 in the LCD panel)
• 75 mA (NTT 2 in the LCD panel)
• 100 mA (NTT 3 in the LCD panel)
Magnetic Stripe Module
The printer can have a three-track magnetic stripe head or a single-track head (or
no magnetic stripe module). The printer firmware has default settings, which can
be changed if needed.
The default data format in firmware for the three-track head is:
• International Air Transport Association (IATA) on track one
• American Bankers Association (ABA) on track two
• Thrift Third Shift (TTS) on track three
This data format is abbreviated IAT and corresponds to the set of ISO
standards for three-track magnetic stripe used on financial cards. The
standards are ISO/IEC 7811 / 1 - 6.
The default data format in firmware for the single-track head is Nippon
Telephone and Telegraph (NTT), more correctly called the JIS 6302 Type II
standard. ISO 7812 and 7813 standards specify compatibility between ISO and JIS
standards.