[Xastir] NWS maps and geo files

[Scott Nolde N4CI]

I'm having a little difficulty viewing NWS maps.  I've created a .geo
file in my maps/Online directory which looks like this:
URL     http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge/RadarImg/N0R/JGX_N0R_0.gif
TIEPOINT        1       1       -85.910617      35.020961
TIEPOINT        600     550     -80.782832      30.320491
IMAGESIZE 600 550
REFRESH 300
TRANSPARENT 0x000000000
#OPTIONAL PARAMS
GAMMA 2
#CONTRAST 0.5
#NEGATE
#EQUALIZE
#NORMALIZE
#LEVEL
#eof

It seems I'm missing something fundamental when I try to view the map.
 It seems xastir doesn't fetch the map and it won't display the gif in
the same directory.  My user running xastir has read+write permissions
to the online directory, also.

Can anyone point to a how-to or provide some assistance in troubleshooting this?

Thanks much,
Scott, N4CI