Atheros card (DWL-AG530)..

Anyone else using this particular, or similiar, card:

DWL-AG530 (PCI/AR5212)

I have had it working, except for a few issues, for some time using
(currently):

kernel: 2.6.13-15.8
ndiswrapper v1.8 (compiled /w gcc v4.0.2)
W32 driver: neta3ab v1.15 (D-Link)

Today, I thought that I would try to resolve the few issues, but haven't
been successful.

The first issue, and this is strange, I can't get it to work unencrypted.
It will work fine with WPA-PSK (TKIP/AES both) and WEP, but it refuses to
talk in the clear. I have a captive portal running, unencrypted, that I
would like to connect to on occassion. I can't get to the CP from my WLAN,
as it is completely separate (topology and physically) network. This, of
course, is by intent --- nobody can get from the CP to my WLAN. I have
other computers, including a laptop, to get to it but it would be
convienent to be able to get to from this one also.

802.11a? iwconfig is refusing to accept any 5.2x Ghz frequencies. (I.e.,
5.280 Ghz). I don't know if this is a limitation of iwconfig or
ndiswrapper. (?) My AP's are Tri-Mode, so I can use .11g, but would be
nice to use .11a for consistency with everything else on my WLAN.

Is there not native Atheros drivers out there? I could have sworn, at one
time, I /thought/ I had seen them. (?). Maybe it was a day dream. From
deja, this particular card (and chipset) seems to be giving the FreeBSD
types quite a bit of headaches also. I tried Madwifi, but couldn't that to
work. Wrapping the W32 driver, with the above exceptions, is working
rather well though. No hanging, speed tests all look great, etc.

TIA,
Eric