Charles, I can save you the effort. The D200 lacks the menu item I suggested and will not show any symbols in the viewfinder or LCD to indicate which VR setting you have the lens set to.
But Ken Rockwell's guide to the lens has a big clue: VR takes a moment to stabilise, so you ideally need to half press the shutter release and wait a second or so before firing the shutter.
I don't want to plagiarise his excellent article, so instead suggest that you
click here to read what the man has to say himself. He discusses the benefits of your lenses VR early in the article, but you may want to skip right down the page to the heading, "How to use the VR".
Ken has also created an excellent alternative D200 users' guide,
click here.
Good luck, and please take a moment to rate my reply.
P.S. If the hotlinks don't work then the 18-200 lens review is at:-
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18200/18200-vr.htm
and the D200 guide is at:-
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d200/users-guide/d200-users-guide.pdf