Local cap, local news server

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Fulton17

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Hi,

I am looking at getting one of the local only options for downloads, but am not sure how it all works and would appreciate some pros helping if they do not mind.

At present I use Grabit and - when possible the WA news server. If that does not have the file I want (normally older stuff) I use my Astraweb account. I have just tried the IS news server via my free Afrihost account and to say it crawls would be a compliment.

If I am correct Astraweb would not work on local only cap, so what local only news server can I use in conjunction with Grabit (which I am very happy with)?

Thanks so much for your guidance
 
WA is Saix/Telkom. So use the SAIX Free News server. I'm not sure, but the WA server might actually be feeding off the SAIX server anyway. It is not as bad as the IS server, but it is still dog slow.
If you can afford it, get international uncapped and stick with Astraweb. It is much easier. Check out the Usenet link in my Sig below.
 
Garyvdh said:
WA is Saix/Telkom. So use the SAIX Free News server. I'm not sure, but the WA server might actually be feeding off the SAIX server anyway. It is not as bad as the IS server, but it is still dog slow.
If you can afford it, get international uncapped and stick with Astraweb. It is much easier. Check out the Usenet link in my Sig below.
Click to expand...

Thanks Gary for the feedback and excellent usenet link - wish I had found that months ago before I deleted some files due to problems with RAR files that needed repair!

Budget is the issue - would prefer international but if I can pick up 30 gigs local for R 125 it is affordable as my budget is stretching a bit on the international front
 
the is 30gb account is full 30gb international so long as your router keeps its connection :)
 
afaik, there aren't any local premium servers, so speed and retention will always be an issue. further more it seems to be dependent on which ISP has access to which server, for example Telkom doesn't work with the IS or WA server

relying on that IS local exploit isn't the best idea imo, even if you manage to stay connected for 20+ days, they surely shape nntp terribly. besides i think because of that exploit they've gotten away with overcharging for it for so long. what's your line-speed btw?
 
Srack0verflow said:
afaik, there aren't any local premium servers, so speed and retention will always be an issue. further more it seems to be dependent on which ISP has access to which server, for example Telkom doesn't work with the IS or WA server

relying on that IS local exploit isn't the best idea imo, even if you manage to stay connected for 20+ days, they surely shape nntp terribly. besides i think because of that exploit they've gotten away with overcharging for it for so long. what's your line-speed btw?
Click to expand...

Thanks for input. I am on a 4 meg line, and WA is my primary ISP, but extra bandwidth is quite expensive.

Due to this being a secondary account, I will need to change routers. During the day I would be using WA and when asleep would then do my downloading on my local onyl account. All very complex :)

The limited exposure I have had to the IS news server is that it is beyond shocking and totally wasted on a 4 meg line
 
Garyvdh said:
WA is Saix/Telkom. So use the SAIX Free News server. I'm not sure, but the WA server might actually be feeding off the SAIX server anyway.
Click to expand...
No the WA NS is completely separate. It used to be SAIX, but since WA got their own network its not. I don't think you can connect to SAIX with WA cap either (too lazy to test)...not sure why one would want to either.

@Fulton: The IS & SAIX servers are very sensitive to cached vs uncached. With paid servers & the WA servers it doesn't really matter.
 
As far as I know: SAIX, IS, WA & Mweb all have their own news servers. None of those news servers accept connections from other ISP accounts.

I'm using 30GB IS local only (which I got for R99 from Axxess) for downloading from the IS news servers and I'm pretty happy with my speeds, given that I only have a 384kbps connection.

The only downside to these free news servers are that they don't really have old stuff and not everything is cached either. So you'll find that you'll get decent speeds with popular TV shows within the week that they aired. Other content might not even start to download.
 
Thanks Havoc and Pada - looks like my plan is not going to work. Oh well, it was worth looking at.
 
@HavoXphere:
I'm not using RSS. I've written a PHP script that gets the list of episodes from a MySQL server and then downloads the zipped .nzb files from NzbMatrix if they match the regular expression. I have scheduled the PHP script with cron to run every couple of minutes.
Using NzbMatrix's RSS feed would definitely be better than parsing their webpages, which is not what I'm doing ;)

I then have SABnzbd+ watching a folder for new .zip files, which then automatically downloads the contents from the IS news servers.
 
Sorry for the thread necro.

Is it possible to use newshost to download on your local cap?

I'm with Telkom.
 
Garyvdh said:
No, mainly because Newshost is not a News Client.
Click to expand...

I mean I get the NZBs from Newshost and download them using altbinz. My server setting on altbinz is "news.is.co.za" . So it's not possible with local cap only?
 
Aaah, yes. That should be possible. But do you have a Newshost account?

Their site is accessible via a local only account.
But they only open up for new sign ups once a year.
On the first of January if I am not mistaken?

EDIT: Yes, according to their website the registrations will be open on January 1st.

Looks like the VIP members have also been given some invites to give out! :D
 
Last edited:
Garyvdh said:
Aaah, yes. That should be possible. But do you have a Newshost account?

Their site is accessible via a local only account.
But they only open up for new sign ups once a year.
On the first of January if I am not mistaken?

EDIT: Yes, according to their website the registrations will be open on January 1st.

Looks like the VIP members have also been given some invites to give out! :D
Click to expand...

I'm using a friend's account right now. Do I need to change any settings because it's refusing to connect.
 
abzo said:
I'm using a friend's account right now. Do I need to change any settings because it's refusing to connect.
Click to expand...

Nope , you just download the NZB's from Newshost, unzip them and import them into Alt.Binz

If they are cached stuff they should come down fairly easy, but if it is older or more obscure stuff you are going to battle.
 
Not sure what's wrong.

It says "could not connect (retry in x seconds)"

Then it keeps retrying with the same error.
 
Who is your ISP?

Did you put any username or password settings in? (You are not supposed to).

Is Alt.Binz allowed in your Windows Firewall?
 
Garyvdh said:
Who is your ISP?

Did you put any username or password settings in? (You are not supposed to).

Is Alt.Binz allowed in your Windows Firewall?
Click to expand...

ISP = Telkom.
Didn't enter any username or password.
I've used it before at work, first time trying at home.
 
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