Hi Chuck,

> .... 1-5.49sec ....

"This cut the head to the torus"

The LEFT JOIN not influence the query time.

Now:
If you have define a index on Propnum

INDEX ON LEFT(groupid,2) TAG TAGGROUP

and the time of

SELECT * FROM  property!propnum WHERE LEFT(groupid,2) == "PN"

still to 5.5sec, this time is the ODBC transfer time.

For speedup query you must change the implementation
( not use ODBC, use local cache, reduce n° records, ... )

If you not found a solution!:
"discharge the clock and to make it to go more slowly"

Fabio