Problems with ralink (rt73) wireless USB connection

[Colin Paul Adams]

I've freshly installed Fedora 9 on the (32-bit) machine, and I
discover that rt73usb-firmware is already installed.

So I went into system-network-config and tried adding the wireless
configuration. It seems straight-forward, but when I try to activate
the connection (I had to deselect the NetworkManager checkbox to try
this - what is Network Manager?) it fails to find IP information.

I checked the SSID and WEP key information (and I have other laptops -
a MacBook Air and a Sony Windows XP machine) working on the router.

How do I go about diagnosing the problem?

Thanks for all help.
-- 
Colin Adams
Preston Lancashire