To start with you need to have chat enabled. Tools > options > chat, tick 'enable chat'.

Right click the column headers on the search page & monitor page, tick 'chat' so that you can see who has chat enabled (smiley).

Now right click on a file (either one you're downloading or one that's being uploaded from you) & select 'chat with host'. A chat box will open & you can try. But... sometimes it just doesn't work for whatever unknown reason. A bit like 'browse host'. You won't need the IP address for chat but you can use that to direct connect with a host. Here's some info on d/c
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=30911