[Barry B]

MORE apologies for following up on the usenet/google alternatives thread-drift, but I'm almost there and could use one more nudge..

I've registered at eternal-september successfully, and have configured Thunderbird to allow me to access and read rec.audio.pro , but I can't post from there. Only access my email accounts via my email provider's website on the PC, or via provider's app on tablet/phone. I'd tried using Thunderbird as an email access program a year or two ago, but got really messed up with leaving messages on server for access by other machines and royally screwed up stuff... deleting messages i wanted to keep, downloading thousands of messages two or three times on Thunderbird and getting duplicates, etc. SOO.. I'd like to use Thunderbird as a usenet reader only. However, I don't have an outgoing SMTP server listed. I'm assuming that's necessary to post (I'm still posting through a google account I NEVER use.. only resurrected it for the couple of recent threads I've participated in here). What do I have to do/configure in Thunderbird in order to post here, but without exposing my email accounts to spam? The email provider I have is excellent, and I've been happily almost totally spam free for a few years, and want to keep it that way... and continue to maintain some privacy. The email accounts provided by my IP are SOoooo bad and spam-clogged I stopped using them years ago.

Can anyone help?