atheros driver doesn't support Master mode (?)

After haveing configured my atheros wlan (on IBM T41p) with yast2 (SUSE11), I tried to ifup the interface and I get the following errors:

ifup wlan0
wlan0 device: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
command ‘iwconfig wlan0 mode Master’ returned
Error for wireless request “Set Mode” (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.
command ‘iwconfig wlan0 nick theibm’ returned
Error for wireless request “Set Nickname” (8B1C) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
Checking for network time protocol daemon (NTPD): unused

I’d like to use it as master in my home network.

Any help?
Thanks,
dustin

it does. But I didn’t configure it correctly.