Dear OMs and YLs!
I deeply regret having to announce that I am not longer able to offer kits and devices. For several years (or are we talking about decades?) Germany and the European Union have been governed by people whose sanity I have serious doubts about. New laws, regulations and guidelines are constantly being passed. These regulations make it impossible, especially for developers who only carry out their work as a sideline or as a hobby, to maintain operation at a cost-covering level without having to plunge into bureaucracy and therefore considerable costs.
Those who come up with this anti-business nonsense (i.e. those highly paid bureaucrats in Berlin and Brussels) always provide supposedly “sensible” reasons why this has got to be that way. People want to protect “the environment,” “the climate,” etc. etc. We are currently protecting ourselves to death, but no one ever protects liberty. When it comes to climate, I’m also wondering how one wants to protect the arithmetic mean of the weather events in the last 30 years (that’s how the term “climate” in scientifically defined!).
A striking example of the current legal strangling of free entrepreneurship: In 2022, a German law translated as “Electrical Equipment Act” (in German abbreviated as ElektroG) was amended and of course tightened. This set of standards regulates the disposal and return of electrical devices. It also includes kits and finished equipment in the amateur radio sector. The legal nonsense passed in 2022 declares it mandatory for me to take back and dispose every single assembly and every device, no matter how small, after the user does not longer need it, it has become defective or similar reasons.
To match the requirements I would have to register with a specific organization in order to display this (called “WEEE registration”). This registration is of course also subject to charge. Because of the idiotic and completely useless bureaucracy has to be paid and the bureaucrats who warm their comfortable office chairs every day (of course only from Monday to Friday noon) but who do contribute absolutely nothing to the economical benefit of this country also want to be paid. And that with a significant amount of money per paycheck.
Therefore I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all customers who have purchased products with me over the recent years. I really enjoyed developing, building and distributing the circuits and, above all, having friendly and interesting “tech talks” with you all!
Vy 73 de Peter