Using mobile phone as an internet radio

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <epudnWDGL-LfiO3NnZ2dnUVZ_oWdnZ2d@supernews.com>,
Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

The Americans do seem generally to be used to sending a lot by courier
when we would just put in the post. Tending to happen in the UK also
even though the Royal Mail / Parcelforce often give a better service
and of course do not charge extra to send further. There has been a
big campaign in the North of Scotland about companies charging extra
for many postcode areas.

That's mostly a business etiquette thing, I think. Sending somebody a
bunch of business documents in the snail mail sort of says that their
input isn't that urgent. Letter mail here is also very secure IME.

Fine if 'they' want to do this and pay for it. My complaint is buying
goods from the US where I'm paying the P&P and not having the choice of a
reasonably priced service. Why would I want to pay in some cases more than
the value of the goods for postage, if I'm in no rush to receive them?

--
*A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking *

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 10/06/2012 09:08 AM, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article<epudnWDGL-LfiO3NnZ2dnUVZ_oWdnZ2d@supernews.com>,
Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
The Americans do seem generally to be used to sending a lot by courier
when we would just put in the post. Tending to happen in the UK also
even though the Royal Mail / Parcelforce often give a better service
and of course do not charge extra to send further. There has been a
big campaign in the North of Scotland about companies charging extra
for many postcode areas.


That's mostly a business etiquette thing, I think. Sending somebody a
bunch of business documents in the snail mail sort of says that their
input isn't that urgent. Letter mail here is also very secure IME.

Fine if 'they' want to do this and pay for it. My complaint is buying
goods from the US where I'm paying the P&P and not having the choice of a
reasonably priced service. Why would I want to pay in some cases more than
the value of the goods for postage, if I'm in no rush to receive them?

Dunno. It may have something to do with package tracking and fraudulent
claims for loss or damage. The logistics companies give you one
tracking number that works anywhere in the world, whereas the post
offices all generate confusion and duplicated numbers that make it very
hard to establish whether something got delivered, and if not, where it
went.

Here, there's lots of competition in logistics, so the service is
generally excellent and the cost very reasonable.

US postal rates are also quite low, which may make it more difficult for
them to negotiate a revenue sharing agreement with higher cost
organizations. (Canada Post is the example I'm most familiar with--at
one point quite recently, all mail from the US to Canada had to go
through the central Toronto sorting facility, even if it was a letter
sent from Vancouver to Seattle.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Sat, 06 Oct 2012 07:06:22 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 10/05/2012 07:47 PM, krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:00:56 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

George Herold wrote:

On Oct 5, 2:51 pm, Jeff Liebermann<je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
On Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:03:21 -0400, Phil Hobbs

pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
Yep. As I understand it (possible wrong), AC filaments break in the
middle, mostly from vibration flexing.

I don't think so, because there's no mechanism for that, as I said. The
wire is fully annealed at all times, so there's no possibility of
progressive fatigue failure.

Oscillating filament light bulb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_DwwNVA-7Q
Whether the earths magnetic field is strong enough to induce such
oscillations is questionable.

While digging for the apparently mythical lifetime test data on
incandescent light bulbs, I've found numerous theories on why
filaments fail.

Grin, the internet as a 'fire hose' of information. I went searching
for something that contained "Philips tech. rev." and found a
reference to the following article,

H. Horster, E. Kauer and W. Lechner — The Burn-out Mechanism of
Incandescent Lamps Philips Technical Review 32,155-164, 1971.

It was referenced in "Illuminating Engineering - Page 32 - Google
Books"

But nothing about turn on failure... sigh.

Here is a patent by some of the same guys at Philips... lots of stuff
about the filament getting hottest in the middle.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3868159.html
(Actually a decently written patent.)

George H.

Tungsten evaporation, causing hot spots, is the most
common. One suggested that thermal cycling hardens the tungsten and
makes it brittle. Another suggested that the inrush current causes a
mechanical shock if it hits at the 60Hz peak, instead of at the zero
crossing. Yet another speculates that the temperature differential
between the hot filament, and the relatively cold mounting structure
may cause cracking.


I can believe that the filament is hottest in the middle. It's
furtherst from the support, so whatever conductive heat sinking there is
will be less, but more than that, it sees the radiative input from the
rest of the filament on both sides instead of just one.

Aren't the filaments welded to the elements at the ends? It would seem that
this would cause a narrowing. ISTR most filaments broken near the supports,
which would be counter to the hotter-in-the-middle theory.

The feedthroughs are made of Dumet, which is basically 42Ni stainless
with a borated copper coating to bind to the glass. It's much
lower-melting than the tungsten, so spot-welding them together shouldn't
affect the tungsten much.

Welding5 is welding. Metal has to flow, no?

A necked-down hot spot is a stress concentration point, and ones nearer
the support would have more mass hanging off them. When the filament
jumps at turn-on, hot spots at the ends will probably more torque applied.

My theory is that bulbs tend to fail when turned on because of the thermal
shock but only because they were about to fail anyway. Cycling, itself,
doesn't have a huge effect on longevity, certainly not a factor of two.

Sort of similar to the case of a long solenoid, whose B field at the
ends is half what it is in the middle.

Do they only burn out when energized? ;-)

I've never seen one burn out that wasn't energized.

OK, perhaps I sh6ould have said *as* they-re energized (to keep th6e corollary
with light bulbs burning out when turned on).

But you're the big-iron transmitter guy.
^^^^^^^^^^^

Huh? I think you have me confused with someone else.

Gotta run, I have a bunch of guys coming to
the lab in a few minutes, and I have to start the coffee pot!

Most important. Get the good stuff.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Sat, 06 Oct 2012 09:28:03 +0100, MB <MB@nospam.nospam> wrote:

On 06/10/2012 00:15, Phil Hobbs wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article <GcKdnTpQbqR-ofLNnZ2dnUVZ_sqdnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
Michael A. Terrell <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:

I've never had a package stolen, as far as I can recall.

Me, either. It's probably that their postal system won't come to
reasonable terms with the US postal system.

Other countries seem quite happy to use ordinary post to the UK. The US,
not. So explain that.


Probably the War of 1812.

Coming from Canada, I can tell you that the USPS is very nearly flawless
when compared with Canada Post. Those morons can't find their rear ends
with both hands and a map.


The Americans do seem generally to be used to sending a lot by courier
when we would just put in the post.

"Courier"? Do you mean "next day" services like FedEx and UPS? Yes, often
time is money. "Couriers" are sometimes (rarely) used for intra'-city
delivery when hours count. Intrest on a megabuck pays for courier service.

Tending to happen in the UK also
even though the Royal Mail / Parcelforce often give a better service and
of course do not charge extra to send further. There has been a big
campaign in the North of Scotland about companies charging extra for
many postcode areas.

Your point?

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 10/06/2012 11:14 AM, krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:

On Sat, 06 Oct 2012 07:06:22 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 10/05/2012 07:47 PM, krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:00:56 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

George Herold wrote:

On Oct 5, 2:51 pm, Jeff Liebermann<je...@cruzio.com> wrote:
On Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:03:21 -0400, Phil Hobbs

pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
Yep. As I understand it (possible wrong), AC filaments break in the
middle, mostly from vibration flexing.

I don't think so, because there's no mechanism for that, as I said. The
wire is fully annealed at all times, so there's no possibility of
progressive fatigue failure.

Oscillating filament light bulb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_DwwNVA-7Q
Whether the earths magnetic field is strong enough to induce such
oscillations is questionable.

While digging for the apparently mythical lifetime test data on
incandescent light bulbs, I've found numerous theories on why
filaments fail.

Grin, the internet as a 'fire hose' of information. I went searching
for something that contained "Philips tech. rev." and found a
reference to the following article,

H. Horster, E. Kauer and W. Lechner — The Burn-out Mechanism of
Incandescent Lamps Philips Technical Review 32,155-164, 1971.

It was referenced in "Illuminating Engineering - Page 32 - Google
Books"

But nothing about turn on failure... sigh.

Here is a patent by some of the same guys at Philips... lots of stuff
about the filament getting hottest in the middle.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3868159.html
(Actually a decently written patent.)

George H.

Tungsten evaporation, causing hot spots, is the most
common. One suggested that thermal cycling hardens the tungsten and
makes it brittle. Another suggested that the inrush current causes a
mechanical shock if it hits at the 60Hz peak, instead of at the zero
crossing. Yet another speculates that the temperature differential
between the hot filament, and the relatively cold mounting structure
may cause cracking.


I can believe that the filament is hottest in the middle. It's
furtherst from the support, so whatever conductive heat sinking there is
will be less, but more than that, it sees the radiative input from the
rest of the filament on both sides instead of just one.

Aren't the filaments welded to the elements at the ends? It would seem that
this would cause a narrowing. ISTR most filaments broken near the supports,
which would be counter to the hotter-in-the-middle theory.

The feedthroughs are made of Dumet, which is basically 42Ni stainless
with a borated copper coating to bind to the glass. It's much
lower-melting than the tungsten, so spot-welding them together shouldn't
affect the tungsten much.

Welding5 is welding. Metal has to flow, no?

Sure, but not the tungsten, just the steel. The melting point
difference is more than that between copper and solder, so it's more
like brazing than normal welding.

A necked-down hot spot is a stress concentration point, and ones nearer
the support would have more mass hanging off them. When the filament
jumps at turn-on, hot spots at the ends will probably more torque applied.

My theory is that bulbs tend to fail when turned on because of the thermal
shock but only because they were about to fail anyway. Cycling, itself,
doesn't have a huge effect on longevity, certainly not a factor of two.

Sort of similar to the case of a long solenoid, whose B field at the
ends is half what it is in the middle.

Do they only burn out when energized? ;-)

I've never seen one burn out that wasn't energized.

OK, perhaps I sh6ould have said *as* they-re energized (to keep th6e corollary
with light bulbs burning out when turned on).

But you're the big-iron transmitter guy.
^^^^^^^^^^^

Huh? I think you have me confused with someone else.

Gotta run, I have a bunch of guys coming to
the lab in a few minutes, and I have to start the coffee pot!

Most important. Get the good stuff.

Stew Leonard's Espresso Roast, roasted fresh daily in sunny Yonkers.
Best beans I've ever come across, and worth the trip. Always a crowd
pleaser.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[§ńühwöŁf]

Phil Hobbs wrote:

Stew Leonard's Espresso Roast, roasted fresh daily in sunny Yonkers.
Best beans I've ever come across, and worth the trip. Always a crowd
pleaser.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Sorry to hijack this thread but I have an actual electronics repair

question: how do I go about getting my old AIWA CX-NA10 stereo system to
read CD's again? Is the lazer bad? It detects the cd and spins up but
wont play it.



--
http://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com
www.snuhwolf.9f.com|www.savewolves.org
_____ ____ ____ __ /\_/\ __ _ ______ _____
/ __/ |/ / / / / // // . . \\ \ |\ | / __ \ \ \ __\
_\ \/ / /_/ / _ / \ / \ \| \| \ \_\ \ \__\ _\
/___/_/|_/\____/_//_/ \_@_/ \__|\__|\____/\____\_\

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 10/06/2012 12:49 PM, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:
The logistics companies give you one
tracking number that works anywhere in the world, whereas the post
offices all generate confusion and duplicated numbers that make it very
hard to establish whether something got delivered, and if not, where it
went.


Registered mail uses one tracking number worldwide too. It's R, a letter,
a fixed length string of numbers and the country code. I can track a
letter or package sent registered mail from almost any country on
17track.net, several other similar sites, and once it is here on the
Israel postal site.

The problem with the US is that they send regular international mail
using a tracking number with an L at the begining, and those are
tracked as far as the first post office the sender drops them off at.

Occasionally they are tracked to a sorting center, but not always, and usually
not.

Several years ago the USPS restructured their rates for mail outside of the
US. They dropped surface mail, replacing it with an air mail system that
takes almost as long. I have had packages take 6 weeks to arrive here airmail
from the US.

They did a survey of prices of the courier services, and simply charge 1/2
of what the courier services do. If you want registered mail, they charge
another $12 or so for it.

Sounds like a bargain to me. Very few other organizations would leave
money on the table like that. I sure wouldn't. Would you?

Compare that to China which charges a few dollars to send a package, and
another dollar or so for registered mail. Or the UK (and the rest of the
EU) that charge about $5 for postage and registered mail.

Plus they save on duty by claiming that everything is a gift. Such
generous folks, those Chinese.

US postal rates are also quite low, which may make it more difficult for
them to negotiate a revenue sharing agreement with higher cost
organizations.

No, they are rediculously high. Much more than an other postal service
for international mail, they also have a very high theft rate, and will
not insure their packages.

Dunno. I don't ship a lot of stuff overseas, so that's quite possible.
However, they're terrific domestically.

As for rates, everyone pays the same rate by international treaty. So the
eBay vendor in central China that pays a few dollars to send his package
is paying the Israel post office the same amount to deliver my mail as
the vendor from the US that pays $16 for the same size package.

The profit/cost above it goes to their national post offices.

What treaties are those, and do they guarantee the same rates for everyone?

It's like cellular roaming rates. I pay .73 NIS ($.20US) per minue to call
on my cell phone from all over europe back to Israel, or to the US.

Someone with a US company can easily pay $3 for the same call, BUT their
cellular company paid the local company the same amount as mine did for
taking the call and forwarding it over international long distance
lines.

Depends what's important to you, of course. Mostly when I'm in Europe I
do my calling over wifi using UMA, so it costs the same as at home. But
I only go there every couple of years.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 10/06/2012 12:51 PM, §ńühwöŁf wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:
[......]

Stew Leonard's Espresso Roast, roasted fresh daily in sunny Yonkers.
Best beans I've ever come across, and worth the trip. Always a crowd
pleaser.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Sorry to hijack this thread but I have an actual electronics repair
question: how do I go about getting my old AIWA CX-NA10 stereo system to
read CD's again? Is the lazer bad? It detects the cd and spins up but
wont play it.



You're no fun anymore.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[R. Mark Clayton]

"George Herold" <gherold@teachspin.com> wrote in message
news:6d1dd2cb-0c34-4443-9254-a2231707b3d1@j14g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
On Oct 5, 6:20 am, Roderick Stewart
<r...@escapetime.removethisbit.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

In article <de99517e-e5e1-4f9d-91e0-

412ab3171...@o8g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, George Herold wrote:
And that s it. Repeated on and off means that the thin region has a
higher average temperature than the thick part of the filament. It
evaporates faster and fails sooner.

Won't a thin region of a lamp filament have a higher temperature than
the rest of it all the time, not just when the lamp is turning on?

Rod.
--

: Hmm, sure, maybe... I really have no idea. But I can't remember ever
seeing a bulb fail after being on for a while. (I'm sure it must
happen.)

It does, I have seen it quite often.

:They almost always go when you turn them on, from which I
conclude that the turn on is more 'stressful'.

Indeed, this is usually when filament bulbd fail.

: Say does Don Klipstein still lurk here? He may have some info on turn-
on failure.

http://donklipstein.com/

George H.

 

[R. Mark Clayton]

"Phil Hobbs" <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote in message
news:MLqdnZyuL9Izje3NnZ2dnUVZ_omdnZ2d@supernews.com...
SNIP

Aren't the filaments welded to the elements at the ends? It would seem
that
this would cause a narrowing. ISTR most filaments broken near the
supports,
which would be counter to the hotter-in-the-middle theory.

The feedthroughs are made of Dumet, which is basically 42Ni stainless with
a borated copper coating to bind to the glass. It's much lower-melting
than the tungsten, so spot-welding them together shouldn't affect the
tungsten much.

Just crimped over AFAIK. Should work fine - the softer metal will cold form
around the tungsten see

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Filament.jpg

I've never seen one burn out that wasn't energized.

They can, but no very often.

But you're the big-iron transmitter guy. Gotta run, I have a bunch of
guys coming to the lab in a few minutes, and I have to start the coffee
pot!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

 

[Steve Terry]

T wrote:

In article <k4jdel$cb4$2@reversiblemaps.ath.cx>, jasen@xnet.co.nz
says...

On 2012-10-02, jim stone <tgh6h56nzh@mail.invalid> wrote:
Not being able to find a small internet radio to buy we liked, we
got mobile phone with which we link with wi-fi to a modem router,
and use it as an internet radio.

Keeping the phoned plugged into its charger all the time, we are
using it to play *all-day* background classical music through an
amplifier and speakers.

Since the phone has no 'moving parts' unlike a computer, we are
wondering if this continuous playing all day of the phone is going
to shorten its working life ?

It may be bad for the battery

My favorite apps on my phone:

TuneIn, Pandora, ScannerRadioPro, EchoLink and RepeaterBook.

And that's kind of why I got the extended battery pack for the phone.

Another you might like:

Solent radio on the net
http://www.ship-tracking.co.uk/Radio/radiopage.html

Steve Terry
--
Get a free GiffGaff PAYG Sim and Ł5 bonus after activation at:
http://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/gfourwwk

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Phil Hobbs wrote:

The logistics companies give you one
tracking number that works anywhere in the world, whereas the post
offices all generate confusion and duplicated numbers that make it very
hard to establish whether something got delivered, and if not, where it
went.

Registered mail uses one tracking number worldwide too. It's R, a letter,
a fixed length string of numbers and the country code. I can track a
letter or package sent registered mail from almost any country on
17track.net, several other similar sites, and once it is here on the
Israel postal site.

The problem with the US is that they send regular international mail
using a tracking number with an L at the begining, and those are
tracked as far as the first post office the sender drops them off at.

Occasionally they are tracked to a sorting center, but not always, and usually
not.

Several years ago the USPS restructured their rates for mail outside of the
US. They dropped surface mail, replacing it with an air mail system that
takes almost as long. I have had packages take 6 weeks to arrive here airmail
from the US.

They did a survey of prices of the courier services, and simply charge 1/2
of what the courier services do. If you want registered mail, they charge
another $12 or so for it.

Compare that to China which charges a few dollars to send a package, and
another dollar or so for registered mail. Or the UK (and the rest of the
EU) that charge about $5 for postage and registered mail.

US postal rates are also quite low, which may make it more difficult for
them to negotiate a revenue sharing agreement with higher cost
organizations.

No, they are rediculously high. Much more than an other postal service
for international mail, they also have a very high theft rate, and will
not insure their packages.

As for rates, everyone pays the same rate by international treaty. So the
eBay vendor in central China that pays a few dollars to send his package
is paying the Israel post office the same amount to deliver my mail as
the vendor from the US that pays $16 for the same size package.

The profit/cost above it goes to their national post offices.

It's like cellular roaming rates. I pay .73 NIS ($.20US) per minue to call
on my cell phone from all over europe back to Israel, or to the US.

Someone with a US company can easily pay $3 for the same call, BUT their
cellular company paid the local company the same amount as mine did for
taking the call and forwarding it over international long distance
lines.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379
"Owning a smartphone: Technology's equivalent to learning to play
chopsticks on the piano as a child and thinking you're a musician."
(sent to me by a friend)

 

[§ńühwöŁf]

Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 10/06/2012 12:51 PM, §ńühwöŁf wrote:
Phil Hobbs wrote:
[......]

Stew Leonard's Espresso Roast, roasted fresh daily in sunny Yonkers.
Best beans I've ever come across, and worth the trip. Always a crowd
pleaser.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Sorry to hijack this thread but I have an actual electronics repair
question: how do I go about getting my old AIWA CX-NA10 stereo system to
read CD's again? Is the lazer bad? It detects the cd and spins up but
wont play it.



You're no fun anymore.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Uh huh. I fixed it somewhat by fiddling with the screw behind the back
cover. G00gle told me how. You lot are obviously quite useless.

<nods>


--
http://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com/
www.friendsofanimals.org |www.snuhwolf.9f.com|
_____ ____ ____ __ /\_/\ __ _ ______ _____
/ __/ |/ / / / / // // . . \\ \ |\ | / __ \ \ \ __\
_\ \/ / /_/ / _ / \ / \ \| \| \ \_\ \ \__\ _\
/___/_/|_/\____/_//_/ \_@_/ \__|\__|\____/\____\_\

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 10/06/2012 03:34 PM, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:
Sounds like a bargain to me. Very few other organizations would leave
money on the table like that. I sure wouldn't. Would you?

It depends upon wat you consider a fair price and what you want people to do.
If you want people from the US to NOT export cheap items then you keep your
postal rates high.

A fair price is what a willing buyer will pay in a competitive market.
If you were a logistics company, or for that matter a unionized
proletarian, you charge what the traffic will bear. That works as long
as there's competition--the more the better in general. You can't keep
jacking up the price if your customers can just go down the street to
your competitor.

If you want everyone to have a small business selling items over the internet
then you keep your postal prices low.

If you want to have economic efficiency, you avoid state enterprises and
subsidies except where there's a compelling interest at stake--for
instance the French pay more for food because they in effect subsidize
small farmers, in order to keep the life of rural France alive. I'm
quite fond of rural France, so I can understand their point.

Postal services? Well, sure, folks in the boonies need to be able to
send in their tax returns.

Plus they save on duty by claiming that everything is a gift. Such
generous folks, those Chinese.

The only gift is to the customs officers receiving the packages. If it is
a gift and the price is low, then they can pass it without inspection, and
if it is inspected just look for the diamonds, guns, drugs, etc hidden
in it.

For example, just ordered about several each of 10 different items
(around 40 items in all), from a vendor in Hong Kong. If he sent it to a
US address and lists it as a gift, the US customs can do a quick inspection
if they do any at all.

If he declares each item, and they inspect the package, they have to figure
out which is which, measure and weigh them and ascertain that they are
what is claimed, and the weight matches.

They say it's a gift regardless of how much it costs.

In this case most of the items were some some sort of USB fob, so good luck.

What treaties are those, and do they guarantee the same rates for everyone?

They are international postal treaties and the guarantee the same rates
between signatories. Or in plain English, each country pays the other
the same rates, but are free to charge their internal customers anything
they want.

Do you have a link? I'd be interested to have a look.

Depends what's important to you, of course. Mostly when I'm in Europe I
do my calling over wifi using UMA, so it costs the same as at home. But
I only go there every couple of years.

Assuming you can find WiFi. Some places think free wifi is a right, others
charge you high rates for it.

Generally the places I've stayed have had free or at least cheap wifi.
That's in Flanders, Artois, and Florence, most recently. And anyway,
since I'm on vacation when I go there, I don't really want to be in
constant touch with home!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article <epudnWDGL-LfiO3NnZ2dnUVZ_oWdnZ2d@supernews.com>,
Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
The Americans do seem generally to be used to sending a lot by courier
when we would just put in the post. Tending to happen in the UK also
even though the Royal Mail / Parcelforce often give a better service
and of course do not charge extra to send further. There has been a
big campaign in the North of Scotland about companies charging extra
for many postcode areas.

That's mostly a business etiquette thing, I think. Sending somebody a
bunch of business documents in the snail mail sort of says that their
input isn't that urgent. Letter mail here is also very secure IME.

Fine if 'they' want to do this and pay for it. My complaint is buying
goods from the US where I'm paying the P&P and not having the choice of a
reasonably priced service. Why would I want to pay in some cases more than
the value of the goods for postage, if I'm in no rush to receive them?

Have you ever tried to mail a thousand+ packages a week? A local non
profit group had a post office refuse their business, because of the
volume. they had to get a politician involved, since USPS is the only
way they are allowed to ship the gifts to our troops. Over $100,000 a
year in postal fees, and were told to go away. By law, they can't ship
a box full of stuff to a base. Each package requires a separate customs
form to be filled out by hand.


UPS and other shippers park an empty semi trailer at the dock of
large customers, and haul it directly to the hub. That entire process
can be automated.

 

[John Fields]

On Sat, 06 Oct 2012 13:29:23 -0600, §ńühwöŁf <snuhwolf@netscape.net>
wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 10/06/2012 12:51 PM, §ńühwöŁf wrote:
Phil Hobbs wrote:
[......]

Stew Leonard's Espresso Roast, roasted fresh daily in sunny Yonkers.
Best beans I've ever come across, and worth the trip. Always a crowd
pleaser.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Sorry to hijack this thread but I have an actual electronics repair
question: how do I go about getting my old AIWA CX-NA10 stereo system to
read CD's again? Is the lazer bad? It detects the cd and spins up but
wont play it.



You're no fun anymore.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


Uh huh. I fixed it somewhat by fiddling with the screw behind the back
cover. G00gle told me how. You lot are obviously quite useless.

nods

---
Hardly surprising, since your query would have more appropriately been
directed to sci.electronics.repair.


--
JF

 

[Jamie]

§ńühwöŁf wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 10/06/2012 12:51 PM, §ńühwöŁf wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:

[......]

Stew Leonard's Espresso Roast, roasted fresh daily in sunny Yonkers.
Best beans I've ever come across, and worth the trip. Always a crowd
pleaser.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Sorry to hijack this thread but I have an actual electronics repair
question: how do I go about getting my old AIWA CX-NA10 stereo system to
read CD's again? Is the lazer bad? It detects the cd and spins up but
wont play it.



You're no fun anymore.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


Uh huh. I fixed it somewhat by fiddling with the screw behind the back
cover. G00gle told me how. You lot are obviously quite useless.

nods


Yes we are. Hope to see you soon.

Jamie

 

[David Woolley]

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Phil Hobbs wrote:

Plus they save on duty by claiming that everything is a gift. Such
generous folks, those Chinese.

The only gift is to the customs officers receiving the packages. If it is
a gift and the price is low, then they can pass it without inspection, and
if it is inspected just look for the diamonds, guns, drugs, etc hidden
in it.

For import to the UK, declaring it as a gift increases the value that is

allowed before VAT and duty is imposed, so, when used for items of low
value, but more than Ł15 (at the moment) including postage, it defrauds
the government of revenue. These are not, I believe free allowances,
but rather values below which it is considered not worth recovering
duty. With the Royal Mail, it also triggers a customs processing charge.

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Phil Hobbs wrote:

Sounds like a bargain to me. Very few other organizations would leave
money on the table like that. I sure wouldn't. Would you?

It depends upon wat you consider a fair price and what you want people to do.
If you want people from the US to NOT export cheap items then you keep your
postal rates high.

If you want everyone to have a small business selling items over the internet
then you keep your postal prices low.

Plus they save on duty by claiming that everything is a gift. Such
generous folks, those Chinese.

The only gift is to the customs officers receiving the packages. If it is
a gift and the price is low, then they can pass it without inspection, and
if it is inspected just look for the diamonds, guns, drugs, etc hidden
in it.

For example, just ordered about several each of 10 different items
(around 40 items in all), from a vendor in Hong Kong. If he sent it to a
US address and lists it as a gift, the US customs can do a quick inspection
if they do any at all.

If he declares each item, and they inspect the package, they have to figure
out which is which, measure and weigh them and ascertain that they are
what is claimed, and the weight matches.

In this case most of the items were some some sort of USB fob, so good luck.

What treaties are those, and do they guarantee the same rates for everyone?

They are international postal treaties and the guarantee the same rates
between signatories. Or in plain English, each country pays the other
the same rates, but are free to charge their internal customers anything
they want.

Depends what's important to you, of course. Mostly when I'm in Europe I
do my calling over wifi using UMA, so it costs the same as at home. But
I only go there every couple of years.

Assuming you can find WiFi. Some places think free wifi is a right, others
charge you high rates for it.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379
"Owning a smartphone: Technology's equivalent to learning to play
chopsticks on the piano as a child and thinking you're a musician."
(sent to me by a friend)

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2012-10-05, George Herold <gherold@teachspin.com> wrote:

I've no problem with your marquee story. Sometimes folk-tales about
rocks falling from the sky are correct.
The data point I offer to Phil is that bulbs fail when you turn them
on. I see no reason why that can't be 'played backwards'. There most
be some GE, Philips, (other) report that documents turn on failure.

I recall a few yeas back someone had long-life bulbs with an NTC
series resistor built into the base.
Old toob tellys always had an NTC in series with the filament supply.




--
⚂⚃ 100% natural

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