kldstat doesn't show ath_hal [AR2425]

[Alexander Kapshuk]

I've got an Atheros card, AR2425, which is supposed to be supported by 
ath_hal(4), according to the man page.

dmesg|grep -i Ath
ath0: <Atheros 5424/2424> mem 0xd6000000-0xd600ffff irq 16 at device 0.0 
on pci2
ath0: AR2425 mac 14.2 RF5424 phy 7.0

I can see that ath_hal is listed in the kernel config file:

egrep 'ath_|wlan_' GENERIC
device   wlan_wep # 802.11 WEP support
device   wlan_ccmp  # 802.11 CCMP support
device   wlan_tkip  # 802.11 TKIP support
device   wlan_amrr  # AMRR transmit rate control algorithm
device   ath_pci  # Atheros pci/cardbus glue
device   ath_hal  # pci/cardbus chip support
device   ath_rate_sample  # SampleRate tx rate control for ath

kldstat doesn't show ath_hal as having been loaded. Is that normal?

kldstat -v|egrep 'wlan|ath_'
   98 pci/ath_pci
   434 wlan
   433 wlan_wep
   432 wlan_tkip
   431 wlan_ccmp
   430 wlan_amrr
   436 wlan_sta  435 wlan_ratectl_none

Long story short, I can't seem to be able to configure my wireless, 
despite following the instructions given in the handbook.

Here's my /etc/rc.conf:
cat /etc/rc.conf
hostname="box0"
sshd_enable="YES"
moused_enable="YES"
ntpd_enable="YES"
powerd_enable="YES"
# Set dumpdev to "AUTO" to enable crash dumps, "NO" to disable
dumpdev="AUTO"
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="ssid plan9 WPA DHCP"
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
linux_enable="YES"
ifconfig_re0="DHCP"

And my /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf:
cat /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=2
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

network={
         ssid="plan9"
         psk=wpa_passphrase-generated psk
}
ifconfig -a
ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
         ether 00:24:2c:5e:06:f2
         nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
         status: associated
re0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=8209b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
         ether 00:23:8b:b2:e5:1f
         inet 192.168.1.3 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
         nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
         media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
         status: active
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
         options=600003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
         inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
         inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xb
         inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
         nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
         ether 00:24:2c:5e:06:f2
         nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
         status: no carrier
         ssid plan9 channel 1 (2412 MHz 11g)
         regdomain 103 indoor ecm authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i privacy OFF
         txpower 20 bmiss 7 scanvalid 450 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 
bgscanidle 250
         roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 5 protmode CTS wme burst roaming MANUAL

'ifconfig wlan0 list scan' returns nothing.
  uname -a
FreeBSD box0 9.1-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE-p3 #0: Mon Apr 29 
18:11:52 UTC 2013 
root at amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386

I've tried everything I could think of, still no luck.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Alexander Kapshuk.