swh. Thank you for that link, it would not display the test applet indicating there is something wrong with the Java I had I downloaded the latest version.
The installation failed, so I tried it again and this time I was rewarded, it had installed correctly, oh joy.
Try to log into chat but with the same negative result as before.
It appears that I am not the only one having problems so it might well be a problem with the digichat server, not my PC.
I will wait until the others report it is ok and see how I get on then.
Thanks for the help everyone.