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1

General Discussion Area / Re: BritCard

« on: 12 October 2025, 19:55:34 »

Different states have different rules. South Carolina - no ID needed. Wyoming - need ID to buy wine gums.

It's daft. On a ski trip to Jackson Hole, went up to the bar at lunchtime for a Jug (4 pints I think). Your ID sir? You what? says I. I need to see your ID sir. I was about 50 at the time. So back to the table (passport was in my ski jacket) to get passport, then queue up again. Here's my ID says I. We can't sell jugs to just you - there need to be at least 2 people. So back to the table to get a friend. Queue up again - 2 ID's and two of us. Yes you can have a Jug. And whilst we're here, can my mate also have a jug says I. Of course Sir!

We didn't do much skiing that afternoon.

2

General Discussion Area / Re: BritCard

« on: 29 September 2025, 19:41:20 »

I don't find the card per-se to be the issue - as others have said we have driving licenses, passports, NI numbers etc. For me the issues are...

1) Are we required to carry it at all times? Or is it like a driving license - you've got 3 days to get down the cop-shop with it?
2) Who can 'demand' to see it?
3) If I get attacked by a great white lesser spotted Somerset squirrel and am bleeding to death, are they going to demand to see the card before treating me?

Anyone who thinks this is going to stop illegal immigrants getting jobs or claiming benefits is an idiot, who will probably be voting Reform at the next election anyway so there is zero political capital for Labour in introducing it. Barking, the lot of them.

3

General Discussion Area / Re: I need to get out more....

« on: 23 September 2025, 18:34:54 »

We've recently bought a laser cutter/engraver at work - 2KW CO2 I think. Can't cut metal any thicker than baco-foil, but is great with Perspex/acrylic. Who knew you could cut and engrave plastic infills for your toolboxes so all your box spanners - standard hex and torx - have their own marked homes to live in

Mine is obviously only a toy one, so pretty limited I think.  It was given to me by a mate who had upgraded to one that would cut wood.

Disappointing to hear that your 1KW one can't really cut metal though

We had a 'toy' one for a few years - Atomstack. Think we started off with atomstack A50 and a 10W laser head, and over time upgraded to 80W. That was about enough to cut 3mm black perspex in a single pass, but needed multiple passes for 8mm and 10mm. The stepper motors weren't great so registration of multiple pass cuts was a problem

Then we got a 50% grant from some obscure govt funding scheme to buy a more powerful Co2 commercial jobbie. Think they're about £5K list price, but with the govt funding and an Oxford uni 'educational' price it was well less than half that. Can cut 20mm black perspex in a single pass.

The problem with metal is that the cutting relies on basically melting or vapourising the material. With most metals, they become very reflective when they melt, so the laser beam just 'bounces' off the initial layer of melt and therefore you can engrave, but not really cut metals. The frequency of the light matters too - Co2 laser light is infra red, whereas the Atomstack (and similar) have a blue LED diode. Different materials absorb different 'colours' of laser light differently, so some materials are easier to cut than others.

The blue LED lasers are good for wood - but be careful things don't catch fire - been there done that :-) Also the fumes from some types of plastic are quite smelly - and some are even poisonous (arsnic amongst other nasties) so if you haven't got a good extraction system best to do it in a well ventillated room. They're great fun and you soon think of lots of things you can build.

4

General Discussion Area / Re: I need to get out more....

« on: 22 September 2025, 18:14:04 »

We've recently bought a laser cutter/engraver at work - 2KW CO2 I think. Can't cut metal any thicker than baco-foil, but is great with Perspex/acrylic. Who knew you could cut and engrave plastic infills for your toolboxes so all your box spanners - standard hex and torx - have their own marked homes to live in

5

General Discussion Area / Re: Shed Project: Suspended Railway

« on: 22 September 2025, 18:00:29 »

I know someone who built a 'branch line' from his layout shed, up the garden to the kitchen, near the fridge. Then when he was feeling the need he'd send a loco and goods wagon up the branch line to kitchen stop, and someone in the house would load a tinnie from the fridge to the goods wagon, and the return trip could be made.

With modern DCC control you can setup an 'alerting' system in the kitchen to signal that some goods loading is required. However, since sections of the line are out in the elements, it's best to build the track from old style Hornby/Dublo/Triang stainless steel stuff, not the modern 'iron' stuff.

6

General Discussion Area / Re: China

« on: 05 September 2025, 18:07:47 »

Jamming is not such an issue as it is easy to detect, the spoofing is more of an issue, we are starting to see spoofing used in car theft now

It is an issue in aviation - many of the newer approach procedures (called RNAV) rely on GPS, and the problem is that if the GPS signal is interrupted/spoofed anywhere along the route then the onboard systems' GPS is considered unreliable, and a RNAV approach cannot be performed. The systems cannot be reset in flight.

As DG says, GPS is routinely 'unreliable' over most of the middle east (Israel, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq), and with Russian and Ukrainian airspace being off limits to western airliners there aren't many eastbound from Europe long haul flights which aren't affected.

7

General Discussion Area / Re: China

« on: 05 September 2025, 15:44:24 »

Flying to India there's no reliable GPS after Turkey.

Which highlights the unintended consequence of Airbus fitting a GPS based auto descend system to the A350 that descends the aircraft automatically following a decompression...

A very real possibility of hitting the mountains.

That makes no sense, the GPS GNSS constellation covers the entire globe, as does Galileo, Glonass, BeiDou etc.

In fact, pretty much every receiver on the planet needs to see a few GPS satellites in order to achieve positioning on the other constellations.

There are lots of systems, mostly military, designed to either jam or spoof GPS. The main reason is that many drone and missile systems have been developed for attacking targets using GPS to navigate. If you can spoof or jam the GPS signals over an area then you can stop those drones/missiles finding their targets.

The UK CAA regularly publish NOTAMS about GPS jamming even in UK airspace - usually related to NATO exercises in the North Sea or north of Scotland. There is a big exercise happenig later this month so GPS jamming NOTAMS should appear shortly.

8

General Discussion Area / Re: China

« on: 05 September 2025, 15:37:05 »

I don't approve of GPS for anything critical. Far too easy to spoof the civil variant, and jam the military equivalent. You can also derive altitude from GPS, and some aircraft systems are starting to use it as input to the flight manegment system - i.e. effectively the autopilot. There are reports over on PPrune of pilots getting 'terrain avoidance' instructions whilst happily bimbling along at 37,000 feet. What exactly are you going to bump into at FL370?

An alarming number of systems also get their time signals from GPS. If GPS stuffs up (either accidentally or through spoofing/jamming) then all types of systems fall over, and an airborne reset is often either not possible or advised against.

The specific problem in this case appears to be known but being kept quiet for whatever reasons. The aircraft spent about 10 minutes extra airborne (not hours) but the ADSB output indicated a good GPS signal throughout. Something obviously happened to the onboard systems which caused the pilots to think the GPS was unreliable, forcing them onto backup systems. Unfortunatly, Plovdiv is a sh1thole (yes I've been there - Mil8/24 base) and most of the other NAVAIDS there were already off line, so AIUI their choices were a Military PAR (Precision Approach Radar - effectively a talk down, left a bit, right a bit, up a bit, down a bit) or a visual approach. The jet in question is civil regisered, but operated on behalf of the Belgian Military so I've no idea what the pilots are allowed to do.

Interestingly, the main Bulgarian fighter base (Graf Ignatievo) is about 10 miles north of Plovdiv. I'd be surprised if the Bulgarian military don't know exactly what happened, and that's why they are trying to shut down the story.

9

General Discussion Area / Re: Small Pot Pensions....

« on: 02 September 2025, 18:56:44 »

On a slightly different note, my small private pension pot has almost run itself down, and as i took the 25% tax free sum when i started, i was wondering about the tax implications of either, taking the small amount left in one go, or letting it run down naturally.

Not sure what you mean by "letting it run down naturally". Are you currently taking a regular income from it? Or is it's value being eroded by charges?

Anyhow, if you take whatever remains in the pot as a single lump sum, then that value will be a treated as income in the current tax year. You will therefore pay 20%, or 40%, or 45% of the whole amount in tax, depending upon what your other income(s) is(are) for the current tax year. If whatever you take could push you over the edge into the next tax band (£50K for the 20%-40% band, or £125K for the 40%-45% band) , you'll pay some tax at the higher rate.

IMV it would be unwise to take any lump sum that would push you into the next higher tax band.

The plan always was to take small monthly income, as the original pot was quite small in real terms. But it has been helpful over the last 17 years.

The tax implications will be the same either way providing the pot value wouldn't push you into the next tax band in the year you took the lump sum. You'll always pay 20/40/45% regardless of when/how.

Unless there is a good reason for taking it as a lump sum (like there is a good OmegaB on eBay you fancy) I'd be inclined to keep taking it as a regular income until the pot is exhausted.

10

General Discussion Area / Re: Small Pot Pensions....

« on: 02 September 2025, 18:40:00 »

On a slightly different note, my small private pension pot has almost run itself down, and as i took the 25% tax free sum when i started, i was wondering about the tax implications of either, taking the small amount left in one go, or letting it run down naturally.

Not sure what you mean by "letting it run down naturally". Are you currently taking a regular income from it? Or is it's value being eroded by charges?

Anyhow, if you take whatever remains in the pot as a single lump sum, then that value will be a treated as income in the current tax year. You will therefore pay 20%, or 40%, or 45% of the whole amount in tax, depending upon what your other income(s) is(are) for the current tax year. If whatever you take could push you over the edge into the next tax band (£50K for the 20%-40% band, or £125K for the 40%-45% band) , you'll pay some tax at the higher rate.

IMV it would be unwise to take any lump sum that would push you into the next higher tax band.

11

General Discussion Area / Re: Small Pot Pensions....

« on: 01 September 2025, 19:18:27 »

So have I got this right?

My DC's are uncrytalised pots?  At the point I start to draw down, or want to take 25% tax free, it becomes crystallised?

Yes.

With the proviso that you don't have to crystallise the whole of any one pot at one time. Only the part you put into drawdown and/or take the TFLS from is crystalised.

Suppose you have a £80K pot, and want to take out £20K over the next 4 years till it's all gone. In the subsequent years you have...

[End of Year 0]
£80K uncrystallised pot.

[Start of Year 1] - you crystallise £20K of the £80K uncrystallised pot. You end up with...
£60K uncrystallised pot
£5K TFLS which you take out immediately and buy that OmegaB from eBay that you've always wanted.
£15K in a crystallised pot which you draw down as income at £1250 per month, paying whatever tax you are liable for.

[End of Year 1]
£60K uncrystallised pot
One OmegaB

[Start of Year 2] - you crystallise another £20K from the remaining £60K uncrystallised pot. . You end up with...
£40K uncrystallised pot
£5K TFLS which you take out immediately and buy another OmegaB from eBay for the missus.
£15K in a crystallised pot which you draw down as income at £1250 per month, paying whatever tax you are liable for.

[End of Year 2]
£40K uncrystallised pot
Two OmegaB's

[Start of Year 3] - you crystallise another £20K from the remaining £40K uncrystallised pot. . You end up with...
£20K uncrystallised pot
£5K TFLS which you take out immediately and buy another OmegaB from eBay for your son.
£15K in a crystallised pot which you draw down as income at £1250 per month, paying whatever tax you are liable for.

[End of Year 3]
£20K uncrystallised pot
Three OmegaB's

[Start of Year 4] - you crystallise the final £20K from the uncrystallised pot
£0K uncrystallised pot
£5K TFLS which you take out immediately and buy another OmegaB from eBay for the daughter.
£15K in a crystallised pot which you draw down as income at £1250 per month, paying whatever tax you are liable for.

[End of Year 4]
0K uncrystallised pot
Four OmegaB's, and a realisation that buying OmegaB's from eBay might not have been your greatest idea.

12

General Discussion Area / Re: Small Pot Pensions....

« on: 01 September 2025, 18:51:00 »

When I did my " retirement course" in the civil service our trainer said the most important thing is of course " living to retirement age" always remembered his words & took every penny that I was entitled to as soon as it was available to me & made sure we enjoy it, I can honestly say that I never really thought about retirement or put money aside for it but simply made sure that my employer/s provided a decent one. Retirement is great once you reach it..👍

The issue is that the civil service scheme is a Defined Benefit (aka DB, final salary or career average salary) scheme. There is no pot of money - it's paid for out of taxation. The money you paid in was NOT put into a pot reserved your you - it was pi55ed up the wall by a previous govt. That doesn't matter to you because you have a DB contract, so if they have to the current govt will just put up taxes, or borrow, or print more money to pay you whatever your contract says.

The rules for crystallising and TFLS's only apply to Defined Contribution (DC) schemes - which do have pots of money/assets assigned to the individual.

It doesn't help when people conflate DC and DB schemes because they are two completely different animals with very different rules.

13

General Discussion Area / Re: Small Pot Pensions....

« on: 01 September 2025, 18:39:36 »

So have I got this right?

My DC's are uncrytalised pots?  At the point I start to draw down, or want to take 25% tax free, it becomes crystallised?

Yes.

Plus I'm lucky enough to have a DB, so is that the same?

No.

DB's are a contract between you and whoever the provider is. There may not even be a pot of money - depends who the DB pension is with. You have a promise (contract) that says they will pay you whatever and whenever that contract says. There are thousands of different DB schemes, so its difficult to generalise since every scheme has it's own rulebook.

14

General Discussion Area / Re: Small Pot Pensions....

« on: 01 September 2025, 13:35:46 »

Can you explain crystallisation?

You have a pot of money/assets inside the pension 'wrapper'. Technically, YOU don't own it - it's held in trust for your (future) benefit. You have a large say in what happens to it, but you don't legally own the cash/assets - the trust does. Even if you go bankrupt the trust remains unaffected (because it's a separate legal entity), and none of your creditors have any claim on it. This is your uncrystalised pot.

Crystalisation can be thought of as act of removing the cash/assets from the trust/wrapper so that they do become yours to access. (This isn't actually the definition, but it's the easiest way to explain it).

At the point you crystallise some/all of your pot you can chose to take 0%-25% of what you crystalise as a TFLS.   So if you crystalise (say) £100K from a £1M pot you might end up with....

£900K Still in the uncrystallised pension wrapper/trust/pot which you can chose to crystalise some/all of at a future date or dates.
£75K Crystallised funds in a pension fund account that you can choose to access as and when you want.
£25K TFLS 

The £75K can stay with the pension co, and remain in much the same investments as it was in before it was crystalliesd. It only counts as your 'income', and therefore liable to your income tax,  as and when you transfer the money from the pension co's account to your own bank account. Whilst it remains in the crystallised pot, it can continue to grow tax free just like it did before it was crystallised. However, you cannot take any more TFLS from the crystallised funds pot EVER - even if it doubles/trebles in value. Every single penny you take out of it will be taxed at whatever income tax rate you pay.

There are many more rules - like you must crystallise everything at age 75 - but that's the jist of it.

One of the  'naughty' but conditionally legal things you can do is crystallise £100K, take the £25K TFLS, and then pay it straight back into the pension. If you're a 40% tax payer, the tax man will gross up your £25K, to (effectively) £42K, and the pension co will add that into your uncrystallised pot. So you end up with £942K in the uncrystallised pot, and £75K in the crystallised pot. Don't touch the £75K crystallised pot, rinse and repeat for a few years......There are rules and regulations on what is called pension re-cycling, but with a bit of planning you can do this perfectly legally.

15

General Discussion Area / Re: Small Pot Pensions....

« on: 31 August 2025, 00:43:23 »

From my research it's actually be advisable not to take the 25% - I'm in a simple world with just a single pension pot.

Huh? Why? It makes no difference when you take the 25% tax free. It's always tax free (well unless/until the chancellor changes the rules). I'm yet to hear a convincing reason NOT to take the full 25% TFLS from defined contribution pots.

The argument is different for defined benefit (aka DB/Final Salary) pots, because you usually have to commute some of the annual income in exchange for a lump sum. In those instances you have to work out the commutation rate. Would you prefer £10K p/a for life or £8K p/a for life and a £25K lump sum?

What I've read is that 25% is for the life of your pension, you don't need to take it in one go.

40% threshold is ~£50k

So pay yourself ~£49k from your pension pots (paying ~20% tax)

Then top up your income from your 25% tax free lump sump, say £15k over the course of the year.

So you get a £65k pension and only pay 20% tax.

You only ever pay 20% tax and over the course of your entire pension that would save far more.

It all depends on what are called 'crystallisation' events.

Say you have a £1M pot. You can.....

1) Crystallise £50K, and take 25% tax free, and then take the remaining 75% as 'income' an pay tax at 20/40/45%. You leave the remaining £950K inside the uncrystallised pension wrapper.
2) Crystallise £50K, and take 25% tax free, and leave the 75% inside the pension as 'crystallized' funds.  You leave the remaining £950K inside the uncrystallised pension wrapper.
3) Crystallise all £1M, and take 25% tax free, and leave the 75% inside the pension as 'crystallized' funds.

What you cannot do is crystallise £50K, but take 25% TFLS of the whole £1M pot. You can only take 25% of whatever you crystallise. Once it's crystallised, you can't take any further TFLS from the crystallised portion of the pot.

On the tax point, if you crystallise (approx) £66K, then the TFLS part of that will be £16K5, leaving £50K exposed to income tax. You have a £12.5K personal allowance, so will pay 20% on £37K5, which is £7.5K. Therefore, you will receive £58K5 into your bank account, and pay £7.5K tax - an effective tax rate of 12.8%.