I have finally got my laptop wireless card working, great!

Only problem is I can't get it to work automatically at boot up. I have read guides and followed instructions, tried making ifcfg and ifup scripts, etc. and it's not working.

Basically, each time I boot up, i open console, type iwconfig.... see that the device is there (originally it was named ra0, but each time i boot up it changes, it has now changed to ra4), i then type dhcpcd ra# (whatever number it is) and then my net works. I just want it to work on it's own.

Any ideas?

Dirty solution:
devname=$(iwconfig 2>/dev/null | head -1 | sed -e 's/\s.*//')
should place the device name into $devname (try echoing it afterwise).
Now you could try using it and writing a list of commands that can be run without being modified by you.
Next write them in a file and check that running
. wifi-script-file
after boot works. Next run
chmod a+x wifi-script-file
copy the file to /etc/init.d and symbollically link it (ln -s) to directory /etc/rcS.d or /etc/rc.d/rcS.d or to both the directories /etc/rc3.d and /etc/rc5.d - whatever you have. The name of the symbolic link must start with S99 . Explanation: /etc/init.d is a traditional place for boot scripts. Every script that is referenced by a symlink with a name starting with 'S' in /etc/rc.d/rcS.d or /etc/rcS.d (depending on configuration) is run with first parameter 'start' once on startup (but you can ignore parameter here). rc3.d is for 'entering normal runlevel' and rc5.d is for 'entering graphical runlevel', but it's a bit distribution-dependent (really, configuration-dependent).
PS. Fill in 'Distribution: ' field in profile.