Reading fellow Marylander Don Gardner's success getting access to sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe in this morning's SeeSat-D digest, I went back an tried it again. Not being a registered subscriber, though, this time I started from http://wmod.dejanews.com/ and tried using their "Interest Finder" and "Power Search" features, but instead of using the search word "satellite" or other keyword, I just pasted "sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe" into the search blank. And that worked. Using the "Interest Finder," that produced a listing of newsgroups which matched the search, with sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe listed second. Clicking on its entry, in turn, produced a listing of 22 postings (as of this morning), which contained the string "sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe." sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe as of March 24th (there was one dated March 17 announcing the newsgroup, but nothing between March 17 and March 24). Using Daja News' Power Search feature next and pasting "sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe" into the search blank, then hitting the "find button" (thus using their default settings) produced - presumably - every posting in their data base referencing "sci.astro.satellites.visual- observe" - some 114 in all (of which most were discussions relating to the newsgroup's creation). Filtering those by pasting "sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe" in the "Groups" search blank on that same Power Search page, and having it sort by date produced ... seemingly the exact same listing as I got back using the "Interest Finder" - some 22 postings to the "sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe" newsgroup, the earliest being March 24 (except the one same March 17 posting). For those not interested in subscribing, but still wanting to check out the postings from time to time, I guess this will have to do until Daja News finally updates their "Browse Groups" search option to include it in their listings for "sci.astro." By the way, Alan Pickup (March 20) noted that Jay Respler's "First Message: WELCOME TO ALL," posted March 19 @ 04:54 UTC was the first posting to the new newsgroup. However, the one dated March 17 I referred to, above, was: >Subject: cmsg newgroup sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe >From: group-admin@isc.org (David C Lawrence) >Date: 1998/03/17 >Message-ID: <890175600.28302@isc.org> >Newsgroups: sci.astro.satellites.visual-observe which both announced the newsgroup and defined its charter. Does this count? ;) (But if Daja News was able to find this one, why, then, wouldn't it produce the first three postings Alan listed in his March 20 note?, or any others prior to March 24 for that matter?) Jim Cook Germantown, MD 39.2N, 77.3W