It’s your router?
It’s great that you stood up to him about the settings on your router, but I have no idea why you would offer to buy him another AP to try. If he wants another one he can try it himself.
He may do networking for a living, but he clearly can’t be good at it.
Sounds like he’s bullshitting. You can certainly have more than one wireless network active on one line. It does sound like he might be planning to walk out on your lease, though. I had a roommate do that to me once. Jerks.
You certainly can have 2 wireless networks going.
One option is to have a WAP - Wirless Access Point, essentially a bridge between the wired and wireless networks, plug it into your existing router’s wired network ports. Silly thing is, this is simpler than a router, but less common, so hence a lot more expensive usually.
Another is to cascade routers; this works fine too. Your new router WAN port connects to a network port on the old router; instead of PPPoE or whatever, just use “acquire a address automatically” (DHCP and plain ethernet) for the router’s WAN port, assuming the old router has DHCP turned on. Your connection may be a little slower, but it will work.
The third alternative is to turn your new router into a WAP - this is simple. Turn off DHCP on the new router, and connect one of its internal network ports to a network port on the old router. No connection to the new WAN port.
Because then the new router is set to not do DHCP, it does not hand out addresses and does not tell anyone it is the default gateway, so nobody tries to send the packets to its address to be forwarded; they get their default gateway with DHCP address from/as the old router. It simply acts as a switch extending your network. If you want to manage it, you will have to set its internal address to something compatible with the old router. (I.e. old router is 192.168.0.1 hands out 192.168.0.100 to 150; set new router to 192.168.0.2, and you can login and manage it from the old/combined network). The wireless portion is just bridged into the network, but with its own SSID and security settings.
Of course, to connect the two routers you may need a crossover ethernet cable (1,2 goes to 3,6 and 3,6 goes to 1,2). And while you’re at it, it’s probably a good idea to separate the two routers as much as possible so to lessen interference.
Some fancier home routers can even be programmed as a wireless bridge and WAP to make a wireless extension to an existing network; but that depends on the router and gets a bit more technical.
So your roommate doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does; or he’s trying to BS you; or more likely, both. If he’s trying to stop you from having an unsecured network, he’s probably got a point. (If you are using WEP-128 and need that 26-character hex key, try putting a $ (dollar sign) in front of it when you enter it into the iPhone - worked for me in 2 networks so far, hex all in caps). If he’s just turning off he SSID, first it’s not a great security measure to do so, second why bother? If he’s as good as he says and does this for a living, he should be able to get your iPhone working with your wireless and security.
md2000, thanks for the best post so far 
btw, the network has always been secured with WPA/AES. I set it up myself, fairly easy to do. I noticed some of his other settings were under the “virtual servers” section. I saw names such as POP3 mentioned as a description to his additions. I think this has something to do with emails or some other messaging. I’m sure he had changed settings in other areas too. At the end of the day, when his settings were there, the iPhone could not use the network. When I reset it and secured it, the iPhone had no problems.
Also, the SSID has always been visible, however my iPhone could not see the network but my laptop could. The second I reset the network, it came up as an available network on my iPhone.
Thanks again to everyone for your help with this.
iPhones really don’t like WEP very much. I’d recommend WPA or WPA2.
Saffer, exactly which Wifi Router do you have? Wifi has different modes: B, G, and N. I think the iPhone does not support N, but your laptops likely will. If your roommate made the wifi N-only then the iPhone would not see the network.
Saffer, you 've mentioned that it is your router, but is it also your internet connection, if it is, as I assume, you are perfectly justified in telling him “Hand Off”. If he wants to move out on that account, then, you have to decide if that is OK with you.
The other thing is, why is he so persitent in applying those settings to the router, is it work related, possibly accessing a secure network remotely, or is it more of a questionable motive, which again, if you are the one paying for the connection, you have a right to know.If he wants to use *your *router for his email in such a way that you can’t use it for your phone, I think it’s perfectly acceptable that you use *his *bed as a bookshelf in such a way that he can’t sleep in it.
Just sayin’.