Unable to place month and year on horizontal axis of scattergram

[CH1]

Excel 2010 (Office Prof. Plus 2010), Windows 7.
One data series that runs from May 1983 through December 2011.
I am trying to have the values of the series on the vertical axis, and a few month/year values on the horizontal axis.
I right-click on the horizontal axis, choose "Format Axis," then explore the tab 'number' with all possible categories and types (including a custom m/yy), and explore 'axis options.'
Gets me nowhere.
I have also tried with many different types of formatting for the worksheet column that has the date (the values of the x axis), from two separate columns for month and year to various versions of month and year in one cell.
Instead of seeing on the horizontal axis something like 5/83 1/1990 5/1998 10/2005 12/2011 (or whatever other dates Excel chooses to display), I get things like 01/00 ... 02/01 even though in 'select data' I have chosen the cells that go from 5/83 to 12/11 to be the x-axis, and even though I chose auto format in the axis options. The data displayed in the chart are complete, 5/83 - 12/11. It's the horizontal axis labels which go all over the place and have no relation to the cells that I chose to display as x-axis (in 'select data').
I am attaching the spreadsheet.
Any clue on how to fix this would be great.

[Steve N.]

Welcome to the Forum.

I worked up a different version. Used a line chart rather than the scatter chart. Pretty long chart though...

Is this something that will work for you?

[CH1]

This works greatly. Thank you very much!!!
(Can compress the chart by choosing a different value for 'major units.')
-- The issue seems to be that the scattergram function limits what I can do on the horizontal axis.
Never thought of trying another chart type...

[Steve N.]

Glad to be of help...