Swatch called the battery-operated mini-Sputnik-99 satellite "Beatnik," a play on Sputnik and beat, the unit of Swatch's proposed Internet Time standard.

Swatch hoped to use the Beatnik satellite to beam down a series of messages containing the word"beat" via an amateur radio channel designated as commercial-free by an international treaty.

But the proposal outraged ham radio operators, the only ones in a position to pick up the broadcasts. A boycott was arranged and Swatch was bombarded with protests.

According to a full-page advertisement in newspapers Friday, the project has been cancelled because the Swiss watchmaker donated the satellite's batteries to the crew of MIR to help run a critical communications uplink.

The ad, which ran in Friday's New York Times and Los Angeles Times, purports to be from the Russian Space Agency thanking Swatch for the batteries.

The ad says that a key communications link with MIR was severely damaged a few days ago, makingit difficult to communicate with the space station.

But Swatch stepped in and donated batteries from the satellite to support an alternative communication's uplink that will be used to deliver daily instructions to the station's cosmonauts.

"To thank Swatch for this gesture, we have decided to publish the messages that had been recorded ... and that we are now not able to transmit on the radio waves," the ad says.

The ad lists some of the messages originally scheduled to be beamed from space.

In a press release sent out Friday morning, the Swatch boycott organizers claimed responsibility for making the company back down.

"I think the response from the amateur radio community had to have made a difference," said RobCarlson, a radio ham who organized the boycott.

Carlson said that there was some doubt about the truth of Swatch's claims. He also said it is questionable whether the batteries were Swatch's to donate in the first place.

"As far as I know, the satellite is the property of AMSAT France and AMSAT Russia," he said. "The components of the satellite don't belong to Swatch. How they came to think they could donate them I don't know."

Swatch couldn't be reached for comment. However, at the bottom of the Web version of the ad, the company acknowledges friction with the amateur radio community.

"There has been a lack of understanding between us and some of you have been very aggressive regarding the transmission of these messages. It was a real shame!" the page says.