On Tue, 15 Aug 2006, Paul Hinman wrote:

I frequently see postings in the ham radio related newsgroups for items
currently being offered on E-Bay.

All to often I that items will be shipped only to the lower 48 states,
leaving hams in Hawaii, Alaska, and Canada out of the picture. What is the
problem. In Canada we are well served by FEDEX and the United States Postal
Service. Amateur radio equipment crosses the border with out any problem. I
realize that Hawaii and Alaska may be a bit far from the "lower 48" but the
same delivery services are available even though surface transportation may
be a little bit slow. In the US you also have UPS, the folks in Brown which
we Canadians prefer not to use because the often make the border crossing
more difficult than it needs to be and we don't like getting stuck with
brokerage fees.

So why the discrimination, if the buyer knows that delivery may take a little
longer and is prepared to accept the fact then it becomes a non problem. If
the seller is intimidated by the prospect of complicated paperwork, he
needn't be. Please leave it up to the buyer to decide whether he wants to
bib or not.

I can not speak for shipments to Europe, Africa, India, China, or the South
Pacific but for fellow Americans, or friendly northern neighbours, I think
that people should be prepared to deal with us.

Thanx for letting get this off my chest and I realize that I have cross
posted this to four different newsgroups but I wanted to get to a broad
audience.

Paul

My sentiments exactly Paul. Its ridiculous we either are part of
the USA or we are'nt. Those catalogs that say "extra chipping
costs to Hawaii/Pr/Alaska etc I give them the deep six.
Joe