Solicit Your Congress - Database/Mailing Program Copyright 1990 David Batterson Voter apathy is a big problem these days. Likewise, it's difficult to get those who do vote to write their U.S. senators and representatives. Now there's help for clubs, organizations, PACs, towns and others who want to do mass mailings to Congress. It's called Solicit Your Congress, or S.Y.C. for short. S.Y.C. is a specialized database containing the names, addresses, party, district, phone/FAX numbers and committee memberships for all senators and representatives in the 101st Congress. Notes (107 characters) and extended notes (630 characters) can be attached to each address. Searches can be made in various ways. For instance, you can enter "CA" in the Home State field, then press to FIND the California senators and representatives. You can also search while in the Party field (D or R), Name field (full or partial names), or Senator/Representative field. You may tag individual records easily for printing later. You can either exit the Data Entry Menu or just press -Y to enter the Print Data Menu. There's a choice of whether to print tagged records ONLY, or all records. You may also select selected fields, i.e., Name, Address, Phone, Committee and Notes. When you're ready to print, you decide whether to print to screen (the default choice), printer or disk file. The print to screen first is a good idea, since you can double-check the results of your search before going to hard copy or disk file. Files are saved in regular ASCII text, for use in your word processor. In the Name and Committee fields, you can use the DOS wildcard: the asterisk key (*). For instance, to select members on both the Judiciary and Ethics Committees, you could input *ic* under Committee. (Of course, you might get those on the Rice Committee too!) If you prefer, you may export data to your favorite database program. After choosing the fields you want included, you have the choice of three different file formats: fixed-length, comma delimited and text. There's also the ability to print labels (five standard sizes), single or tractor-feed #10 envelopes, standard post cards, and Rolodex/index cards (three sizes) for your mailings. You can also print return address labels. The programs's menus are friendly enough, although it's usually better if you can press to return to a previous menu. S.Y.C. doesn't use this common software feature. It does provide access to DOS without exiting the program, which is handy. When you install S.Y.C., you have a choice of monochrome or color. The manual says that the color is "light blue foreground on a blue background," which is incorrect (it's low-intensity WHITE on blue background). There is no way to change the color palette, and you apparently can't change to monochrome without reinstalling again. The company president, Terry D. Lanyi, says he wants "to hear from you about your needs and desires." So buyers should follow up and make suggestions for changes they'd like to see in the next version. S.Y.C. is not really difficult to use, and there's online help available. The manual could be improved a bit, however. Pages 3-6 are printed with NO paragraph breaks at all, making them a bit hard to read. Requirements are simple enough: 512K RAM and a hard disk. S.Y.C. costs $49.95, with yearly update at $24.95. The LAN version costs $129.95, and LAN update is $74.95. You get either 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" disks. There's free unlimited telephone support (not toll-free). For more information or orders, contact T-Lan Systems, RR 2 Box 1290, Norridgewock, ME 04957, 207-397-5511. Another program, Solicit Your State (S.Y.S.), has many states available, with the rest to follow soon; prices are the same as S.Y.C. # David Batterson reviews various PC applications, and writes his legislators regularly.