GTB, I want to give you a big big juicy kiss, Got it working 
I read your post above, and the penny finally dropped, by a bit slow, I realised what I was doing wrong, I was
sending the empty message to 9770 and then not doing anything else, just waiting for the message centre message from voda
after having read your post above I then followed this up by
typing in *#100# and then pressing the dial button and i got the phone number at long last
thank you and everyone else
this is what i did step by step
1. sending blank message to 9770 got the number (not the simcard number though, just message from voda message centre)
2. then type *#100# and dial it
3. This give you the number  | 
