Hi, Kurt-
 
 KW> Mixing usenet and FTN feels too much like a culture 
 KW> clash, better to keep them
 KW> separate where possible.
 
I use Teranews's free account ($3.95 initial setup fee, but free forever
afterwards) and Soupgate/SPOON to gate USENET groups in/out of the BBS.  I
have a couple of groups gated including alt.bbs.synchronet which I follow
from time to time (I know, it's SYNCHRONET here on Fido, but I'm lazy). 
It's not too bad and none of them are heavy, heavy traffic so it's good. 
The main reason why I did the gating was just because I didn't want to
install a newsreader so I put everything into one place to read.
 
Personally, USENET is a wasteland now, sadly, but it still has its uses,
just like Fidonet. :)
 
Later,
Sean

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