Andrew Ruben: 
 >I have just begun to read the postings on this group and wonder if
 >there exists a moderated group on electrodynamics.
 
  There isn't.
 
 >Having read Feynmann (and listened to him) I grabbed Carver Mead's
 >Collective Electrodynamics and was duly impressed with the 4 vector wave
 >presentation.
 
  Carver Mead seems to have some misconceptions about quantum
mechanics, so I'd be rather cautious if the article you read
went beyond classical electrodynamics.
 
 >What I would like are more sample computation from which to extrapolate
 >and fool around with some ideas about the possibility of NON-gauge
 >invariance and reinvention of an ether.

  You don't need an ether to ``fool around'' with a theory that isn't
gauge invariant. All you need to do is give up conservation of charge,
which then means maxwell's equations are no longer correct. That alone
doesn't prevent you from making the resuling theory gauge invariant,
so long as you retain the lorentz condition, d_u A^u = 0, but you
have to work harder to make the resulting theory gauge invariant.
You could simply abandon the lorentz condition and that would be
guaranteed to do what you want.