Hi Gary,
The set-up requires a few pre-installation requirements. The network should be up and running and wireless in the first instance, so any kind of wireless router needs to be feeding you with a network connection. You then use that router to give out IP addresses (and here there are multiple choices as to how to best manage a network) to your PC, iPhone, iPAD and indeed any other device that you want connected without network cable.
I have successfully used the iPhone to create a wireless local area network to which everything can connect with bluetooth - but that's a whole other wireless protocol that can get quite confusing when talking both wifi (or wireless local area network) and connecting devices in a peer-to-peer network setting. It's best not to confuse the set-up at this point getting into complex network topologies.
So, in short you will need:
1. A wireless router of some kind to dish out a network address to your devices. You can buy these for anywhere from $60 all the way up to $lotsandlots depending on your budget. I would suggest something around the $100 mark generally does all that you need - but I have to put in a disclaimer here because there are many brands that do many things. I personally use a D-Link DSL-2740B (wireless ADSL Router) but that's because it plugs into my ADSL connection at the same time. You may not need that, you might get by with something like a DAP-1353 which is an access point, in other words it creates a wireless network but does not have the ADSL modem part attached to it. Also, there are other brands besides D-Link; Netgear, Cisco, Billion to name just a few are decent and popular choices for the same technology.
2. A wireless card or usb stick for your PC (most laptops have then by default these days) to connect to the router. If your PC has a wireless card inside it you won't need this but you cannot connect to a wireless network without a wireless interface on the PC. These are available for anywhere from $20 upwards, pretty much the same choice of brand names I mentioned above.
3. Your iphone or ipad to be connected to the same wireless network to which your PC or Laptop is connected. This is a rather easier thing to manage as once your wireless network is set up, your iPhone or iPad will generally be able to find the network (assuming it is being 'broadcast') and you will then be able to connect using your chosen pass-phrase (which will have been set on the access point or router).
4. Power for these things.
I know that does not even touch on the different set-ups that one can choose. You can, for instance, purchase a thing called a 'Mifi' device from Telstra or Vodafone or Optus or insertphonecompanynamehere. Those devices create little local wifi networks and have a sim card in them so they can access and share the internet with any connected devices. You have to pay for the device and then pay for the data plan through a telecommunications carrier, I know people who find this very agile but it's not for me at the moment and I don't tend to travel with my scopes.
Anyway, that gives you a very quick and basic overview of the things needed to get started. After that is set up, Troy's setup works well using SkySafari (StarmapHD will do it also).
