CA/400 File Transfer Problem

I am helping a client setup some automated downloads using runrmtcmd and CA/400.
We've got the auto part down pretty good,  but we are having a data translation
problem. 

The source file has a couple dates stored as numbers not as dates and we want to
get yesterday's transactions so... using the 
Define Results in query we do the following

                            Define Result Fields


 Field       Expression                         COMMENT
 SHIPDATE    digits(04251999)                   # Number to CHAR

 SHIPDATEMM  substr(shipdate, 1, 2)             # Get Month

 SHIPDATEDD  substr(shipdate, 3, 2)             # Get Year
 
 SHIPDATEYY  substr(shipdate, 5, 4)             # Get Year

 SHIPDATECH  shipdatemm  || '/' || shipdatedd   # Build Char field that is a 
date
             || '/' || shipdateyy

Plus some more stuff

Now if we use CA/400 to download SHIPDATECH or a couple other fields built using
the method for SHIPDATECH CA wants to call them "HEX" and when downloaded the
date of 
04251999 downloads as F0F4F2F5F1F9F9F9.

If the client uses ETU400 to download the data it comes down in char format
04251999.
displaying the data file on the 400 shows the fields as char and query displays
the correct format.

What are we doing wrong??


-- 
Kirk Goins
Blue Heron Consulting,Inc
2418 SE Burnside Rd #321
Gresham, OR 97080
503-618-1493
EMAIL kgoins@ix.netcom.com              
                kirkgoins@aol.com
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---