udp telnet?

[Jacob S <stormspotter@6Texans.net>]

Hello list,

I use the telnet client quite a bit for testing tcp daemons, such as
smtp, http, etc., on various servers I'm working on. It works great for
making sure there aren't any firewalls blocking my access. That is, it
works great until I need to test a udp connection instead of tcp.

So, my question is, is there something nice and simple like telnet that
does udp instead of tcp? I'd like to be able to see the 'raw' data from
the server and send commands manually, similar to the way one can test
an smtp server using telnet. Does anyone know of a program that can do
this?

TIA,
Jacob