ping script howto please

[Piers Kittel <edinfo-list@biased.org>]

Hello,

As my router keep dropping connections to my modem, I need to find out 
why it is doing that, still not sure, so have decided to write a ping 
script to see if it prevents the connection dropping, but as I haven't 
really written a script before, how do I find out how to:

Ping the nearest computer to me (i.e. in my ISP) every 1 minute, and 
send a message to the IRCd if the ping doesn't come back - preferably 
only once until the connection comes back.

Thanks very much for your help in advance

Cheers - Piers