With the pre-r1408 NG code,

• if you ifconfig -a right now, you should see a wifi0 device and not see an ath0 device. If you see ath0, you probably still have an ath0 line in /etc/iftab
• construct the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ ifcfg-wifi0 and ifcfg-ath0. They should start at boot. Use the standard rules- you can copy an ifcfg-eth0 & edit it to reflect ath or wifi instead of eth, for example.
• wlanconfig should now work- so to make a station, for example, wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta