Steve -- I too used to have many drop outs between ACP and DDW causing the plan to stop in it's tracks. I only use this obsevatory Dec-March each year and that was last winter. This winter I've only had the drop out once or twice. I am running ACP 5.1 hotfix 11. I'm not sure when I upgraded to hotfix 11 but could maybe figure it out if you like.

One thing I'm doing differently this winter is using The Sky only brief times to go to an object and then I suspend The Sky's telescope connection. Use to be if I terminated"the telecope connection, ACP would close down so I switched to "suspend". Even so, I rarely connect The Sky anymore.

Even stranger is the fact that I use another obsevatory April-Nov, with a different computer running the same software, ACP 5.1hotfix11 and DDW without any problems. This obsevatory is on 12V DC power. The winter obsevatory is on 120V AC power so I thought there might be some relationship and shielded all the cables between the computer and DDW box but still had the drop outs until this winter.

Joe Morris