Hi Lynx2oo2
I use the the text.news.ntlworld.com server for text groups & have found it to be pretty reliable.
Binaries are another story - try newscache.cable.ntlworld.com or news.cache.cable.ntlworld.com - I'm not saying that these are any better than the one you currently use, but i've found, sometimes, having a choice means you can find one that has the edge at the particular time you want to d/l.
Failing that, there are a couple of free 3rd party servers, but I'm guessing you want a bit more than the 50Mb/day they offer?
<edit>they are good for fills though.