[A/S] how to search the archives correctly?

["openrx" <openrx@xxxxxxxxx>]

greetings all

new to group but not to airstreams. previously owned a 28 ft 79 
motorized version for 15 years and full timed in it for 3 years. 
finally passed it on to the next caregiver and now i'm planning to 
buy a 28-30 ft trailer. i can hardly hold back while i do the 
research and planning for this....i want my silver bullet badly!!

anyway before i ask too many questions, thought i'd search the 
archives and browse the messages. i must be doing something 
wrong....when i enter a search term and hit the search button i am 
only getting search results from the last few 100 messages. i tried 
going back to the first message from 2000 and searching but still 
seems to just search recent posts.

how do i get more compete searches? is it possible?

thanks and happy holidays.

cheers