"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
news:2iurc3Frrgu5U2@uni-
The only drawback is that they have a short timeout - about 5
minutes, so if I spend a long time composing a response I have
to reconnect. Doesn't happen often.

Sounds like you need one of those little stay-connected programs. It's
designed to prevent disconnection by pinging the server every few minutes or
whatever period you set.