The field in remote database is Unicode. That's what VFP brings back. STRCONV(6) should be able to convert it to ANSI.
Another option is to upgrade to VFP9 and use new SYS(987) to turn on automatic conversion between Unicode and ANSI.

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>I've got an issue I haven't seen before. Using SPT to get data from a third-party database. The query runs and brings back the results, but in VFP (Version 8), the data has extra spacing between each character. So the word ALEVE looks to foxpro like A L E V E
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>I have attached a screen shot with debugger running, the same query in SA and the code that I'm calling. I'm guessing this is some kind of unicode issue. The database is SQL Server 2000.
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>The field is 800 characters so it get returned as a memo, but that hasn't bothered me before. Since I don't have control of this database or the data, I'm trying to figure a way around this.
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>Thanks for any advice
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>Kirk