smart can't see repositories?

[greg wm]

i have used smart successfully to downgrade httpd to a previous version 
by setting up a channel for /var/cache/yum.  but, trying to go further,

it seems smart is unable to see repositories unless they are on the 
local disk.

i have a fresh install of whitebox linux 4 (rhel4), onto which i've 
updated yum and rpm and installed smart:

 
=============================================================================
     Package                 Arch       Version          Repository 
    Size
 
=============================================================================
    Installing:
     smart                   i386       0.40-23.el4.at   at-e-stable 
    569 k
    Installing for dependencies:
     libbeecrypt6            i386       4.1.2-8_9.el4.at  at-e-stable 
      95 k
     librpm4.4               i386       4.4.1-22_49.el4.at  at-e-stable 
       943 k
     medley-package-config   i386       103-1.el4.at     at-e-stable 
     11 k
     python24                i386       2.4.1-2_8.el4.at  at-e-stable 
     5.6 M
     pythonabi               i386       2.3.4-1.el4.at   at-e-stable 
    1.7 k
     rpm-python24            i386       4.4.1-22_6.el4.at  at-e-stable 
       93 k
     rpmforge-release        i386       0.2-2.2.el4.rf   dries-e 
     15 k
     sqlite-devel            i386       3.2.2-1          CentOS_base 
    408 k
    Updating for dependencies:
     libselinux              i386       1.23.10-1.99_3.el4.at 
at-e-stable        67 k
     libselinux-devel        i386       1.23.10-1.99_3.el4.at 
at-e-stable        98 k
     net-snmp                i386       5.1.2-11.EL4.6   CentOS_base 
    491 k
     net-snmp-perl           i386       5.1.2-11.EL4.6   CentOS_base 
    160 k
     popt                    i386       1.10.1-22_49.el4.at  at-e-stable 
        63 k
     rpm                     i386       4.4.1-22_49.el4.at  at-e-stable 
       579 k
     rpm-build               i386       4.4.1-22_49.el4.at  at-e-stable 
       518 k
     rpm-devel               i386       4.4.1-22_49.el4.at  at-e-stable 
       1.3 M
     rpm-libs                i386       4.3.3-11_nonptl  CentOS_base 
    782 k
     rpm-python              i386       4.4.1-22_49.el4.at  at-e-stable 
        97 k

yum can see pachages:

    # yum list amavisd-new
    ...
    Available Packages
    amavisd-new.i386                         2.3.2-1.2.el4.rf       rpmforge

but smart can't:

    # smart query --show-channels amavisd-new
    New channel 'Extra packages from RPMforge.net for Red Hat Enterprise 
4 - i386 - dag (rpmforge)' detected.
    Include it? (Y/n):

    Loading cache...
    Updating cache...

    error: 'amavisd-new' matches no packages

what could be wrong?

tia,
greg