Ikegami,
The 'NN' "fake-out" worked nicely. Two things though, I also need to pad the above value with two spaces, i.e.,
"00 00 00 00 00 09 fe 00 20 20" - need a total byte displacement of ten: how can I pad/add two more spaces at the end of my value? And, what is the significance of the ", 0," in the "pack('NN', 0, $_)" statement? Again, thanks for your prompt response!