DPS & CBC barcodes, help needed

[buddybullterrier]

Hi there,
I am new to this forum & in need of some advice/help.
To cut a long story short, I have a letter which has 2 printed barcodes on the envelope, which upon researching I believe to be called a DPS (delivery point suffix) and I really need to find out what the post codes are within these barcodes. I have tried looking at the font online & reading it myself but I am struggling to. Is there any way these can be read? I have contacted royal mail but they seemed pretty clueless as to what I was talking about. I was told that they cannot read these for me but surely there must be some sort of way? Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[SpacePhoenix]

What colour of ink are they printed with?

[barrowc]

If the barcode was printed by the customer sending the letter (i.e. it's a CBC) then it's easy enough to interpret as: start bar > postcode > delivery point suffix > check digit > stop bar. Usually this is printed in solid black ink near the address although some customers will print it elsewhere on the envelope (and may print it as closely-spaced dots rather than solid bars)

If the barcode was printed by Royal Mail on to the item then it's in a proprietary format which they are unwilling to reveal the details of. Indeed there have been several Freedom Of Information Act requests on that subject which Royal Mail have rejected - for an example see https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... tag_code_a.

The Royal Mail ones are usually printed either: in orange ink in the bottom right and/or middle right of the envelope (tag and route codemarks from an iLSM, MTT or similar) or in black ink directly on to the item or on a label attached to the item (from a TOPS2000 flat sorting machine). If you're not sure then the number of bars in the barcode will usually tell you. A customer barcode (CBC) has 30 bars for a 5-character postcode, 34 for a 6-character and 38 for a 7-character. Looking at letters I've received recently, the tag and route codemarks are 64 bars in length whereas those from a TOPS2000 machine are 44 bars long (Royal Mail's FOIA response above mainly covers this code)

[buddybullterrier]

Hi there,
the barcodes are both 44 bars long. I've tried to compare them to the letters on the bars you can see online, the first one I made out DW but I know there are no postal codes with that so I don't think it is right. I could upload a pic for others to see but i'm guessing this isn't a barcode I can figure out myself

[buddybullterrier]

ALso they are printed in black ink. It is an A4 sized envelope..one barcode is on the top left hand side of the envelope and the other bottom right hand side. No labels etc were on it

[buddybullterrier]

This is one of the barcodes that was on the bottom right hand side of the envelope. For some reason it wouldn't let me rotate it clockwise

[PhilthyPhil]

That is a barcode off a TOPS2k, from the link given above...

The Royal Mail Flats Sorting Machines use a contrast 4 state tag code to
uniquely identify each mailpiece for 1 month.

The information encoded in the Tag code is:-

- The 3 digit number to identify the Mail Centre that applied the Tag Code
- The 1 digit number to identify the serial number of the Sorting Machine
within that Mail Centre that applied the Tag Code (This is normally = to
1)
- The Date of the month that the tag code was applied
- The Half Hour Period within the day that the tag code was applied
- The Sequence number of the mailpiece within the half hour period.

- The 37 bits of data in the Tag Code are combined with a 3 bit checksum
(modulo 8) to give 40 bits.
- These 40 bits are represented by a sequence of 44 four state bars after
encoding using a Reed- Solomon mechanism for the detection and correction
of reading errors.

The encoding and decoding algorithms are proprietary to Royal Mail but are
provided in the form of software supplied under license. We believe that
this information constitutes a 'trade secret' of the third party licensor
and is therefore exempt from disclosure under section 43 of the Freedom of
Information Act. The use of this exemption is subject to the public
interest test. However, we believe that the public interest is best
served by withholding the information. The information is of purely
technical nature which would not inform any public debate over the
provision of mail services or increase transparency in any decision making
process. Further, it is not in the public interest to undermine the
commercial value of this information.

[adb2aber]

Hi there,
I am new to this forum & in need of some advice/help.
To cut a long story short, I have a letter which has 2 printed barcodes on the envelope, which upon researching I believe to be called a DPS (delivery point suffix) and I really need to find out what the post codes are within these barcodes. I have tried looking at the font online & reading it myself but I am struggling to. Is there any way these can be read? I have contacted royal mail but they seemed pretty clueless as to what I was talking about. I was told that they cannot read these for me but surely there must be some sort of way? Any help would be greatly appreciated...

So you have the envelope, it must have been delivered to you, right? So you already know what the DPS would say. Because if it didn't go to you then a) why do you have an envelope that went to someone else whose address you don't know and b) why do you want to know? If the recipient wanted you to know where they lived they'd tell you - the fact you're trying to find out where it was delivered to says to me that you have a dubious motive for not asking them straight up.

[buddybullterrier]

no, I have a copy of this. The original letter was sent to someone whom I know & I have been accused of sending a malicious letter to. I cannot really go into too much detail but basically the recipient claimed the letter was sent in the envelope pictured. I have my suspicions that this letter was actually made up by the recipient & could possibly even be their own envelope used. If I could find out the barcode postcodes from this it could not only prove my innocence but also tell me if the recipient has involvement in this.
I've personally rang Royal mail and visited various sorting offices within my local area & it has been an absolute nightmare as most of the people I have spoken to don't even know what DPS are. I was basically told that these cannot be read & there was nothing they could do.