ath (Orinoco) card cannot associate

Apologies if this appears twice...I posted through google
groups at first for some reason, not sure this is working.

I have upgraded to 7.0-CURRENT Jun 16 from 7.0-CURRENT Jan 8,
and cannot use orinoco cardbus card anymore to connect to my access point.
The machine is Thinkpad T23.
I have not changed any wireless configuration
on the AP recently, nor the ifconfig command on the client.
Here is how I bring up the interface: 

ifconfig ath0 up 192.168.0.6 channel 6 ssid kot-podval-edu wepmode on
weptxkey 1 wepkey 1:0xc1275f0aa31adbe7ce0497ee24 bssid any

ifconfig -a :

ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        inet6 fe80::220:a6ff:fe4c:3547%ath0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
        inet 192.168.0.6 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
        ether 00:20:a6:4c:35:47
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (DS/1Mbps)
        status: no carrier
        ssid kot-podval-edu channel 6
        authmode OPEN privacy ON deftxkey 1 wepkey 1:104-bit txpowmax 30
        bintval 100 


What bothers me is the "status: no carrier" line, despite the
fact that both indicator lights on the card are blinking, as
they should when the card is connected to the AP.

dmesg|grep ath shows:
ath_hal: 0.9.17.2 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413,
RF5413)
ath0: <Atheros 5211> mem 0xc0210000-0xc021ffff at device 0.0 on
cardbus1
ath0: Ethernet address: 00:20:a6:4c:35:47
ath0: mac 4.2 phy 3.0 5ghz radio 1.7 2ghz radio 2.3

Loaded modules:

Id Refs Address    Size     Name
 1   29 0xc0400000 414910   kernel
 2    2 0xc0815000 1dbec    linux.ko
 3    1 0xc0833000 f8d4     if_ath.ko
 4    2 0xc0843000 3ff4     ath_rate.ko
 5    6 0xc0847000 1f138    wlan.ko
 6    3 0xc0867000 31308    ath_hal.ko
 7    1 0xc0899000 8a80     if_fxp.ko
 8    1 0xc08a2000 2df0     wlan_wep.ko
 9    1 0xc08a5000 6b0c     wlan_ccmp.ko
10    1 0xc08ac000 3f9c     wlan_tkip.ko
11    1 0xc08b0000 5b468    acpi.ko
12    1 0xc2249000 6000     linprocfs.ko
13    1 0xc22d4000 2000     green_saver.ko
14    1 0xc2bc3000 9000     savage.ko
15    1 0xc2bd7000 e000     drm.ko

I have also tried disabling WEP and MAC access control on the
AP (with a corresponding change to the above ifconfig command
on the client), to no avail: I cannot ping the access point
IP.

Any idea what I might be doing wrong? 

Thanks,
	Vladimir