I was actually printing $radio_search - test, to see if i was getting any value from the form. But as it turns out that wasn't the problem. The problem was that i had an image with a link to the search page, instead of submiting the page. To fix it i removed the link and added onClick="document.form.submit();" to the <\img\> and that worked. Thanks for your help and response.
Comment on Re: How do i chec a radio button in Perl?
because personally, I turn JS off many times, since I am not really impressed by everything JS can do... anyhow, it would be a good idea to choose to go this route rather than risk people not being able to use the button.