Live zero line: √

[SUNRAY]

I heard from someone that the Chinese Govt wants businesses to increase overseas sales, so subsidise the postage rates, but I don't know if that's true.

I've heard that too from several sources.

 

[SUNRAY]

That's what I was suggesting would happen to Sunray. I have been buying from AliExpress a fair bit recently and have learnt where to click so as not to get caught out.
(They call it Color: )

And that was indeed my assumption but it was clearly showing as the meter for the silly low price, the different colours also changed the image. If I had purchased I would have screen shotted the whole sale.

Exactly as I have done with an Ebay sale which arrived today, different to that showing in the images so complaint went in as soon as I opened the box, within 10 minutes the listing has been altered so I sent a second message, asking for a refund to the value of the missing connector at Screwfix

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I heard from someone that the Chinese Govt wants businesses to increase overseas sales, so subsidise the postage rates, but I don't know if that's true.

I've heard the same, but they also gain an advantage, by the country they deliver to, having to deliver for free - it's very one-sided.

 

[securespark]

I've never thought about how the postal delivery systems work.
How do RM get paid for delivering mail from other countries?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I've never thought about how the postal delivery systems work.
How do RM get paid for delivering mail from other countries?

I think they both share a similar cost. UK takes payment for UK to China, China covers China to UK. Problem is, there is much more stuff, going China to UK, so RM end up way out of pocket on the deal.

 

[plugwash]

I've never thought about how the postal delivery systems work.
How do RM get paid for delivering mail from other countries?

Wikipedia has a bunch of info on it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#Terminal_dues . A quick summary is.

Originally the Universal postal Union worked on a settlement-free basis. Countries were responsible for delivering mail handed to them by other countries without compensation. The idea was that this would be reasonably fair since the flow of letters would be reasonably symmetric.

However, later it became clear that developing countries received far more mail than they sent. In 1969 "terminal dues" were introduced to compensate countries which received more mail than they sent. The system of terminal dues was tweaked many times In 1999, a system was put in place that essentially gave developing countries a discount on deliveries to developed countries. Even as recently as 2010, the US was quite happy with the system, since it let the USPS ship mail to many countries far cheaper than private carriers could achieve.

However, then we got the rise of mass "direct from china" shipping, driven by sites like amazon, eBay and aliexpress. The USPS went from making a surplus on international mail to making a deficit in 2015 and trump was not happy with what he saw as the US government subsidising the delivery of cheap crap from china. Trump threatened to withdraw from the UPU.

A couple of years later, a compromise was negotiated. UPU terminal dues were raised, and countries were given the option to self-declare terminal dues, based on domestic postal rates for goods and some documents (but not ordinary letters). The wikipedia article doesn't say what countries actually adopted said self-declared rates, but toing some searching finds https://digitalsociety.eui.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/6A_Campbell.pdf which says that all but two "economically advantaged countries" have adopted self-delcared rates.

So in summary it seems like the west was subsidising packages from China in the mid-late 2010s and early 2020s, but such subsidy either has been or is in the process of being phased out.

 

[ericmark]

I think it was a freebe not something I would normally buy, as nearly all functions are duplicated with my clamp on meter. However had I not got a clamp on, then it would be very handy.

But as to the firewire, I am still uneasy about these testers in the hands of the DIY guy. I will simply ignore that function. But as less than a volt stick costs, and no only shows volts like the volt stick, but at 4 different levels, it puts the volt stick to shame.

And it also measures volts and ohms, the down side is no selection, so you must be careful it has auto selected the range you want.