CompuServe Thread

I have been trying to connect via modem to a friend's macintosh (so that he can upload into my computer some photographs he digitized for me for a newsletter that I put together quarterly). Anyway, we have been having a very difficult time of it. I use AT3. Earlier in the week I set it on remote mode, and went to his house to see if between the two of us we could figure out what to do. We managed changing some of the commands to his modem, and succeeded in connecting (I didn't write them down, so I can't tell you at the moment what the string read). Anyway, we lost the connection when I mucked up one of the uploads (my fault, not the 'puters). Anyway, we tried to connect tonight. We succeded a couple of times, but after about two minutes of typing at each other (before transferring files), we both started getting a bunch of garbage. Afterwards, we couldn't connect. Now here's the question. We both live in the NE, where we've been suffering through a lot of heat and humidity. Could this (along with excessive power useage by all of us due to AC, etc.) cause sufficient fluctuations in the phone lines so that we can't connect? If this is the case, why am I able to connect to CIS (and he can connect with both CIS and AOL). Any ideas???? Pat