Yay! Problem is, both my crappy ISPs have no binary news servers.
sbcglobal.net (DSL) doesn't offer them, and ku.edu (employer) recently
decommissioned theirs, so while I can get the newsreaders, I can't
access the files in the groups. I'm shut out!

Anyone have any suggestions? Downloading the .avi or .mpegs, of
course, was just fine--my Mac will play Windows Media files, too, but
I've only got the two ISP possibilities for newsgroups, AFAICT.

Ewoud, you've made the winter quite enjoyable with the files you've
provided to date, so thanks and thanks again for your time and effort!
Cheers,

Eric