Okay,
in case anyone else comes acroos this thread, here is what the deal was. Upon closer scrutiny of the Contribs download page, I realized it was an iframe.
Went back into the admin of xoops, to the weblinks. Lo'an behold, a setting in the xoops weblinks preferences to display the link in an iframe.
Ooops, answered my own question. Hope this saves someone else down the road.
Joe