Serial server configuration

Hello group I am new to this. Here is my project over view

I am setting up Serial and USB to ethernet servers so that I can control my Ham radio station from inside my house. The radios are out int he garage in a cabinet. Because some of the radios already have serial ports (RS-232) for computer control and some of the other interfaces (rotor controls and antenna switching) also use RS-232 to operate I have purchased a Serial server. The USB server is mainly for audio FOBS (USB audio cards) that I plan to use as remote sound cards; Mic input on the FOB comes out on the computers speakers and Mic on the computer is the sound out on the FOB feed in to the radios mic connection. all of this being done over the LAN at my house

I bought a Iolan Rack+16 port serial server for the RS-232 stuff. trouble is I cant get it to connect to the LAN. I plugged it in to a port on the router, the LEDS light up and blink in sycn, but it doesnt show up when I bring up the router on the computer. It does show the port has transmitted data. I tried everything in the manual but very little luck. the recommend hooking the server up to the LAN and using ARP commands but i can't seem to make that work. the other method is to is Hyperterminal and communicat to the server via port 1 using the the COM port on the computer. when I do this i get a message saying it is looking for the "DHCP BOOTP" address 3 or 4 times then a login in. this is what it is supposed to do, but when i type in something per the manual on hyperterminal i get nothing. it maybe be 20 seconds before a charactor evens shows up on the screen, if that! not sure what I am doing wrong. plus the server doesnt show and RX data for the port i am connected to? no blinking LED for PORT1 RX. Am I doing something wrong for hyperterminal? The last thing I tried was to hook the Base10/100 port on the server directly to the ethernet jack on the computer and communicate with it that way using ARP. this brings mixed results I can send it IP address amd MAC address, but I am not sure which ones I have sent different ones. I have the standard 192.168.1.254 router setup (AT&T 2Wire Router with switches behind it. I tried 192.168.1.70 and the servers MAC address, I tried 192.168.1.70 and the servers mac address. Basically i am trying anything to get this to talk to the network.

I also downloaded and installed true port from the manufacture to be able to configure the device but it wont work unless i can get the server to connect on the LAN.

I have run out of Ideas Help please

Thank you

Oh and if you cant tell I know very little about this, so please you may have to break it down to laymans terms for me. Thanks