[Elecraft] Buying a K4 in UK

[Geert Jan de Groot]

On 02/08/2023 20:54, elecraft-request at mailman.qth.net wrote:
> Call Elecraft and see what they tell you. Why is this not obvious?

For one, it is not obvious because Elecraft does not have (and can not 
have) expertise in the complex and fast-changing world of international 
customs regulations. The post office says that this is "the 
responsibility of the receiver" even if the post office screws up, which 
often happens.

Just one example: a few years ago, a small item could be sent as 
"letter" and as long as the value was low, it just went through. These 
days, anything not on paper is a "parcel", requires a boatload of 
customs administration both at the sender's (USPS won't touch it 
without) and again at the receiver's end (that means *you* doing the 
complex customs admin paperwork!), and you get to pay the post office 
for the processing of said paperwork in addition to other charges, 
customs and taxes.

I also dare you to look up the costs of sending something trivial to EU 
or UK via USPS or any of the other carriers. You will not be pleased.

Having had some bad experiences with self-import I can see where the 
question comes from. Having been burned before I'm gladly paying the 
markup of a local distributor even though in some cases the cost goes up 
by as much as 3dB.

I have trouble with these offside remarks "just call elecraft". I dare 
you to ship something to the UK or EU, using current, recent regulations 
and see what happens.

Elecraft's supply problems have been hard, very hard on DX distributors. 
A customer orders something and then the distributor is told to wait for 
a year or more on the order. For a distributor, one way to make revenue 
is to get combined orders which doesn't work for these very long, and 
unpredictable lead times.
Meanwhile, while the customer is waiting, he may cancel the order and 
the distributor is left with very little way to make revenue. The one in 
Berlin I used to use, closed shop end of last year because the low sales 
volume made things unsustainable.

As to W&S - I think there have been some major changes. Note that W&S 
didn't advertize in the RSGB RadCom magazine for several months. 
Typically these are small, one or two-person shops and if something 
happens (circumstances or health) things quickly go sour.

In brief, "just call elecraft" is entirely too simple. I hope you see 
that now. And I, too, don't have a quick and easy way to order a K4 in 
the UK.

Geert Jan