A Very Happy New Year To You all and thanks again for all your replies.
When I turned the laptop on this morning it did not connect to my network. I did a quick search on the forum and found out about a program called netstumbler. This searches for available networks and gives you more broadcast info. I found out that channel 11 is absolutely rinsed in my area so avoided that one. I tried channel 10 as this did not appear on the list and it worked! Currently typing on said laptop
Hopefully it is sorted now but will not be totally convinced until it connects first time for a few days.
Cheers again for all your help
Joe