How to debug a PCMCIA modem

[Bob Alexander <bob@ngi.it>]

Until a couple of weeks ago I had debugged my GPRS PCMCIA modem and 
wvdial that worked (very poor performance but it worked).

Yestaerday I needed this while traveling on a train but the insertion of 
the card did not produce any visible event in dmesg or syslog ??

I am mostly (not 100%) sure nothing changed in my kernel meanwhile.

Where should I start looking around ?

My kernel is a 2.6.10 with udev and hotplug and ACPI.

First question arises from the fact that no "pcmcia" packages are 
installed but IIRC they are not necessary since builtin the 2.6.10 kernel.

TIA,
Bob