Thanks Mohan - i check out the links and do have that option enabled. I'll see if I can borrow a mac and try out the mac app for testing, but ultimately I need a PC to do this.
This is a wired switch, right? A wireless one can trash the WOL packet, from what I understand. I guess some wired ones may also do that....
http://murphymac.com/wake-your-mac-from-a-pc/
That will show you a way to wake your mac from the command line on a PC.
You can try http://dlsreports.com/wakeup but I've had mixed results with it.