Wireless: pump, iwconfig, network - How it works

Hi Guys,

I'm trying to get up to speed on wireless networking in Linux.
When I insert my wireless (PCMCIA) card, it gets detected,
and pump starts, DHCP broadcasting (I think).
If I sucessfully get assigned an IP, I hear a confirmation 'beep'
and the card stays up.
If I don't get assigned an IP I get a lower toned beep and the
card goes down.
Is this the way it should happen ?
I can manually bring the card back up with iwconfig or /etc/pcmcia/network.

Can anyone point me to some docs that explain how it all works ?

TIA,
Ray.