Delay accessing news server

I use MT Newswatcher under OS10.5.4 to read newsgroups. Mostly this works just fine, with near instantaneous response, but sometimes when attempting to open a group or read a message there will be a long delay or no response, although the log and task window look normal. Similar behavior with two different news servers.

This could just be load related queueing delay, except that if I cancel the request and then immediately reissue it, the second request is quite likely to get immediate response. It behaves more as if some message or interrupt is lost somewhere, and there is no timeout or a very long timeout.

Has anyone else seen this behavior?

Thanks,

Bill.