John I ahve to agree with your sentiments. Right now the bureaucracy in the EC is at a crzy level and does not look like its going to ease.

Yes its sensible to have harmonisation of standards, but when it's implimented as it is right now, it is simply restrictive.

Maybe thats why we have so many poeple working in software and so few in hardware and firmware.

AND, with so much legislation that is both costly and difficult to identify, its easy to see why we end up with "the blind leading the blind" which ultimately defeats the very purpose of the legislation.

However it works both ways, I find it really difficult to find a route to FCC Type approval that does not cost over 3 times as much as EMC testing and CE marking!

Incidentally, there is one supplier over here in the UK, that has a rather novel approach in sales incentives. They have their own EMC test facility and if you use parts supplied by them in your design, they will allow you to use their test facility for free. They have a qualified engineer on hand to assist.