trouble setting up wireless

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 9 Jun 2013, Alexander Kapshuk wrote:

> On 06/09/13 01:24, Warren Block wrote:
>> First, check the easy things: is there a physical switch to enable 
>> wireless?  Is it on?
> There is no physical switch to enable wireless there.

Notebooks also have function-key combinations to enable and disable the 
radio.

>> Please post the output of 'ifconfig -a'. 
> root at box0:/root # 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
> 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 "" channel 12 (2467 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
>        bintval 0

I don't see anything obviously wrong.  Is an access point within range? 
Has someone set it to have a "hidden" SSID?