ADM8211 not setting the right channel
 

I've got a Trendnet TEW-223PI with the ADM8311 chipset installed in a redhat 9 box as eth1. When the module is loaded eth1 comes up and iwconfig shows the correct AP, ESSID and Mode. However, if I specify in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 the channel (AP is set for channel 6) iwconfig shows no connection to the AP, no ESSID, etc. If I allow channel to be set to "auto" in ifcfg-eth1 the connection to the AP works but the channel is wrong. It always selects channel 9. If I try to change the channel or freq parameters with iwconfig they do not take. Any ideas?