Thank you all for your help. The consensus is that using Ni on transmission lines is a bad thing (for low loss lines) and not that anything went wrong with my particular board plating. Now I need to find a good Ni etchant, one that doesn't etch Cu :-) Daniel M. Kuchta IBM T. J. Watson Research Center 1101 Kitchawan Rd. Rt. 134 Yorktown Heights NY 10598 914-945-1531 (voice) 914-945-4134 (fax) kuchta@xxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu