For a one time $3.95 sign-up fee www.teranews.com is OK, but some of my
posts never seem to make it to the group.

That was my experience as well... good for reading, maddeningly spotty for
posting.

Last night I signed up for a free www.motzarella.org account and it works
better posting, but they don't carry ABPW, at least on the server I'm
using. They have two others I've not tried yet. .

I have opted to go this these guys:

http://www.usenet-news.net/

Their pricing model is per-gigabyte downloaded rather than per month. IMO,
cheaper than even the cheapest monthly subscription.
I have been using them for about a month and I have been very pleased so
far. $5 for 10GB of downloads.

10GB should go a long way for mostly test and modest binaries usage.

YMMV

Steve