On 9/13/2023 3:49 AM, Chris McCarthy wrote:

Hans,
my QMX which arrived last week , then an invoice this week from FedEx for ?5.73.
I'm not complaining by the way just some feedback, looking forward to building and getting it on the air!
73 Chris G3XVL

Hi Joe

Yes exactly as I thought. I have MORE THAN enough problems already,?without?being tax collector for 27 EU member states plus UK!?

Still in general - shipping to EU and UK does seem to work. It works almost the same way it always did in the old days. When the package arrives, it is assessed for tax, and this is collected from the recipient.?

The original announcement by EU and UK sounded scary because there was no mention of just being able to ignore their nonsense completely, and carry on the old way. It wasn't publicized anywhere. In my case, I can't even keep up with my emails let alone be a tax collector even if it sounded fun (which it doesn't). So I had no choice but to ignore them completely, then I found out ignoring them completely does work.?

So I'd suggest you sending something to EU/UK to test it, you might be pleased to find there's less trouble than you thought!

Anyway what clocks are you selling? You made me curious.?

73 Hans G0UPL

On Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 5:55?PM Joe WB9SBD <nss@...> wrote:

Morning Hans,

I know of many many small businesses that just plain stopped selling directly to the EU? and UK, just for this reason.
I am even one of them. About 25% of my sales went to these areas. Not any more. They are not paying me to be their Tax collector. I still did sell some to those areas but it was a "Do you have a friend or relative here in the states, or anywhere but the UK or EU that I can ship the clock to. And then you two can figure out how to get it to you" " I won't be shipping directly to the EU or UK anymore"

Joe WB9SBD

On 9/13/2023 7:32 AM, Hans Summers wrote:

Hi Chris, Peter, all

A couple of years ago, mid Covid19, EU changed the rules, eliminating import VAT minimum value thresholds. Prior to that, low value packages were not taxed (15 euro or less). Now, EVERYTHING is taxable, even if I send you one plastic nut its value will be taxable.?

At the same (or similar) time they implemented rules that foreign sellers should collect tax on their behalf, at point?of sale, and make tax declarations to the EU governments. This is completely impractical for a small business. So apparently (though it did not seem so at the time), foreign?sellers who don't have the resources to be able to do this tax collector role for the EU governments, can still send things the old way and have the import tax charged at point of entry.?

Furthermore, although you may point out that UK is no longer EU since "Brexit", the UK did also choose to follow the same rules as EU on this. Presumably as it had been already planned somewhat pre-Brexit or perhaps because the UK government also thought it was a good idea.?

Accordingly since I do not live inside EU/UK, and since I do not therefore even cast a vote involving the election of these morons who love taxing the hell out of everything that moves (and quite a lot that doesn't), all QRP Labs shipments to EU/UK are theoretically subject to import VAT. The import VAT is the responsibility of the purchaser, including that in many cases the cargo company (whether regular post office or TNT/FedEx courier) will also charge an administration fee.?

Two things do mitigate the damage or at least tend to do so:

Firstly in many EU countries and UK, the government still don't have the resources to deal with import VAT taxation on all small packages even of low value. The Germans are super-efficient and manage it. But many countries do not. Therefore in many cases there is nothing to pay, no VAT.?

Secondly, QRP Labs' shipping office have been known, of course on rare occasions, to make errors on the valuation declaration, and in these rare cases, the import VAT therefore due is of course much lower anyway; and normally the import VAT?+ admin fee is anyway much less than would have been taken in a point-of-sale scenario.?

The latter was the case in both Peter's and Chris' cases; I am not sure why Peter's bill was high.?

73 Hans G0UPL

On Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 1:00?PM Peter OM4AEI <om4aei@...> wrote:

Lucky you. Fedex surprised me with a bill of 29.70 EUR for delivery to Slovakia. That included VAT, customs and administrative fees.

Isn't it the recipient/buy that gets charged VAT in the eurozone?  I didn't think the vendor would be charged anything but shipping costs...

Just curious

73 de va3rr

On Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 10:55 AM, Joe WB9SBD wrote:

 They are not paying me to be their Tax collector. 

Joe WB9SBD

Joe WB9SBD

Hi Chris, Peter, all

A couple of years ago, mid Covid19, EU changed the rules, eliminating import VAT minimum value thresholds. Prior to that, low value packages were not taxed (15 euro or less). Now, EVERYTHING is taxable, even if I send you one plastic nut its value will be taxable.?

At the same (or similar) time they implemented rules that foreign sellers should collect tax on their behalf, at point?of sale, and make tax declarations to the EU governments. This is completely impractical for a small business. So apparently (though it did not seem so at the time), foreign?sellers who don't have the resources to be able to do this tax collector role for the EU governments, can still send things the old way and have the import tax charged at point of entry.?

Furthermore, although you may point out that UK is no longer EU since "Brexit", the UK did also choose to follow the same rules as EU on this. Presumably as it had been already planned somewhat pre-Brexit or perhaps because the UK government also thought it was a good idea.?

Accordingly since I do not live inside EU/UK, and since I do not therefore even cast a vote involving the election of these morons who love taxing the hell out of everything that moves (and quite a lot that doesn't), all QRP Labs shipments to EU/UK are theoretically subject to import VAT. The import VAT is the responsibility of the purchaser, including that in many cases the cargo company (whether regular post office or TNT/FedEx courier) will also charge an administration fee.?

Two things do mitigate the damage or at least tend to do so:

Firstly in many EU countries and UK, the government still don't have the resources to deal with import VAT taxation on all small packages even of low value. The Germans are super-efficient and manage it. But many countries do not. Therefore in many cases there is nothing to pay, no VAT.?

Secondly, QRP Labs' shipping office have been known, of course on rare occasions, to make errors on the valuation declaration, and in these rare cases, the import VAT therefore due is of course much lower anyway; and normally the import VAT?+ admin fee is anyway much less than would have been taken in a point-of-sale scenario.?

The latter was the case in both Peter's and Chris' cases; I am not sure why Peter's bill was high.?

73 Hans G0UPL

On Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 1:00?PM Peter OM4AEI <om4aei@...> wrote:

Lucky you. Fedex surprised me with a bill of 29.70 EUR for delivery to Slovakia. That included VAT, customs and administrative fees.

Hans,
my QMX which arrived last week , then an invoice this week from FedEx for ?5.73.
I'm not complaining by the way just some feedback, looking forward to building and getting it on the air!
73 Chris G3XVL

Hello John

During the critical startup/reset phase PB4 remains unconfigured and unprotected, just like PB7. Your correction changes my view of what might happen afterwards, but the
V(absmax) vulnerability prior to Vdd rising remains.

Just to avoid confusion it's PB4 and PD7 which are the two GPIO pins concerned. In an unconfigured state at first power up, the STM32 GPIO pins are configured as inputs by default (5V tolerance applies). It doesn't alter the V(absmax) vulnerability if it exists.

What happens to QMX should that receiver input be destroyed, by ESD, overvoltage, whatever? I have yet to see a functional failure that I can attribute to that. Would QMX simply refuse to turn off?

By "receiver input be destroyed" I assume you mean the GPIO pin is destroyed.

In the case of PB4: PB4 is always configured as an Input, and it senses the state of the left rotary encoder button push. If the PB4 pin was destroyed, you would not be able to do anything which involves pressing that left rotary encoder shaft button. Which includes turning off, band change, and mode change. Actually this is a useful fact. Because if someone cannot turn off their QMX, then we can ask them, can you change band, change mode. If the answer is YES then there is no problem with the GPIO pin, something else is preventing power-down only.

In the case of PD7: PD7 is, soon after power-up, configured as a push-pull output. After this, there is no possible issue with over-voltage; the voltage is 0V or 3.3V and in either case can sink the tiny current coming through the 100K resistor. Before this, it would be by default a 5V-tolerant input pin. If the GPIO pin was destroyed then what would happen next would depend on the nature of the destruction; if it failed open-circuit then LIN_REG_EN would be high, always selecting the 78M33 regulator. If it failed short to ground, then the LIN_REG_EN would always be low, always deselecting the 78M33 regulator; in that case it wouldn't be possible to switch the unit on either.

73 Hans G0UPL