More EU madness
I’m not the first blogger to mention this item of news but it is certainly one topic that I could not allow to pass by without comment. According to the IARU Region 1 website, the EU Commission will be revising the EMC Directive and removing the exemption of amateur radio kits and modified equipment from its provisions. Products that are currently exempted would be subject to inspection and certification, a process which would make the production of kits hopelessly uneconomic. It would also potentially spell the end of home building and modification and prevent the importation of kits from the USA and other havens of relative sanity. No, this isn’t one of my April 1st spoof stories released from the Drafts folder by mistake!
I would hope that the IARU, the RSGB and other European amateur radio societies will make urgent representations to the EC to stop this proposal. But this is just one scary example of why I and many other like-minded people feel that we in the UK would be better off out of the European Union.
In fact, most of Europe would be better off without it in my opinion. Could somebody explain why, at a time when European governments are supposed to be cutting back on public expenditure, they continue contributing billions every year (only recently having voted an increase – the UK alone contributes £51 million per day) in order to fund this unelected and unaccountable Commission to employ people who live in cloud cuckoo land to produce unwanted, unnecessary and unasked-for legislation?
now now julian..
i’m sure that when you went shopping that you only bought bananas that met the EU directive on curviness and colour, and that you only bought youe cheddar cheese from a farm in cheddar gorge, or that your lancashire hotpot was actually made in lancashire and not milton keynes right ???
hehe i totally agree and it’s a haven of stupidity (the eu).
charlie ex 2e0gom
The EU is one of those organisations whose sole intention is to make life as difficult as possible for the great unwashed ie you and me. What do they know about Amateur Radio? How lucky are those who live in the Free World eg USA Canada Australia and New Zealand!
@ Stephen: We are damned lucky indeed. But we still don’t have 5 meters!
72 de Craig N7CPC
Very sad.
I have a strange feeling in 10 years or so EU will ban ham radio entirely in a similar way the comunists are doing in P5. In thier opinion the freedom of speach is a dangerous concept these days, ham radio is difficult to be monitored and controled…See the roadmap: they start with all kind of stupid antenna restrictions(in DL or F tragedy with antenna permits), now start restrictions of amateur kits, internet is on the edge of censoring (on France proposal), wonder what will be the next step? I strongly advise our colleagues from EU to alert the media abt the freedom of speach violation…maybe they can delay the inevitable. Thanks God we are living on the free side of the ocean.
Merry Xmas and Happy Holiydays
73 de VE3GNO ex YO3GJC
“EU,” as pronounced by my then five-year-old when discovering the mud pie was canine fecal matter. It has become an oligarchy of intellectual anarchy.
@craig, yea but we dont have 4m either and 4m is an awesome band 😐
We still need to keep a watchful eye open here in the states too, because we have plenty of bureaucratic morons who like coming up with equally simular idiotic legislation.
Joe KB3PHL
Oh, I could not agree more. Europe is a mess. I should be asking for political asylum somewhere else.
A new trend in DL now is that judges now give in to complaints of people that want to take your antenna down as they claim to be “allergic” to RF. We had a lady here that blamed the club repeater antenna for all her illnesses, only that the repeater itself had already been moved to another location many years ago and the antenna was disconnected since then 🙂
Oh, I wish I was younger I would get out of Europe now. The bureacrats get paid fat salaries to sit on their backsides (polite!) and make up stupid rules. They have no idea of reality and of course kill off industry by making the selling prices too high – but of course they can afford it on fat salaries. I hope the UK can get out of the European mess – at least we did not join the Eurozone. I understood in the beginning it was to make a good trading area but now the political leaders in the rest of Europe want to make it a confederate of states. I would be off to NZ like a shot but alas I am 66.