Method, apparatus and article of manufacture for dynamically positioning magnetic shielding to reduce magnetic interference at a magnetic read head

A method for reducing background magnetic noise present at a magnetic read head, the method comprising the steps of:

• positioning a piece of magnetic shielding material at one of a plurality of locations;
• obtaining a noise measurement at the location;
• and,
• checking to determine if the noise measurement is below a desired threshold and if below the desired threshold then selecting the position as the magnetic read head position for the magnetic shielding material;
• else repeating the previous steps using another of the plurality of locations until a position with an associated noise measurement below the desired threshold is selected.

An article of manufacture comprising a processor useable medium having a processor readable program embodied in said medium, wherein the processor readable program when executed on a processor causes the processor to:

• position a piece of magnetic shielding material at each of a plurality of locations;
• obtain a noise measurement at each of the plurality of locations;
• select a location from the plurality of locations based upon the noise measurements;
• and,
• position the magnetic shielding material at the selected location prior to using the magnetic read head for decoding of magnetically encoded information.

An article of manufacture comprising a processor useable medium having a processor readable program embodied in said medium, wherein the processor readable program when executed on a processor causes the processor to:

• position a piece of magnetic shielding material at one of a plurality of locations;
• obtain a noise measurement at the location;
• check to determine if the noise measurement is below a desired threshold and if below the desired threshold then selecting the position as the magnetic read head position for the magnetic shielding material;
• else repeating the previous steps using another of the plurality of locations until a position with an associated noise measurement below the desired threshold is selected.