Networking :: linksys 802.11b model: wpc11 v3

So far I have found confusing information everywhere I've looked including the forums and now seek help..

Here are some specs:

Dell latitude lm w/16bit pcmcia support
linksys wpc11 v3 card
Kernel version 2.4.26

****

I figure that I don't use ndiswrapper because the ndiswrapper.sourceforge.org main page says "pcmcia(cardbus only)" and this card is 16 bit even though this page
(
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List#L
)
in the wiki is confusing for two simple reasons:

It has wpc11 and wpc11 v4 listed separately with pciids (it's pcmica ?) that I don't get when I do an lspci (that I don't see a reason for doing anyway).

****
Anyway

Supposedly the wireless card is a confirmed prism2 compatible wireless card but I'm not able to get that to show up in lsmod
I don't have a wireless router, but there are some in the area w/unknown sids for the field in the prism2 gui .

I'm ignorant .

-Do I need to know the sid and a wep key or can I find an "open" area network w/dhcp?
or Will I be forced to recompile the kernel with additional modules? or something else?

cardmgr[779] :no pcmcia driver in /proc/devices

original here.