Thanks wildbill, I will have a look at that when I get a minute, ( the reason I can't make a priority of tidying might be better told in a PM or barsports )
meanwhile I have another problem with my current project, with the remote controls , and see that I am also using pins 9 and 10 for inputs ( and its transmitting with VirtualWire. )
Both remotes have the same problem, where one commutating pin ( 11 ) wont go low to sample switches, and yet a previous identical version worked fine ! The only difference is that I am using the P-UP chips now ?
I am using all the available pins, so I was thinking of rather using EasyTransfer instead of VW.
I used the Softeasytransfer ( a combination of EasyTransfer and NewSoftSerial ) recently and it worked perfectly, but does that use the same timer ? I had a look at the .h file but couldn't spot it.
I suppose I could use the hardware EasyTransfer, using the TXD pin, but I am not sure how that would work when I want to test the chip in the arduino board with the USB connected.