Aha - it's been a while since I was on my wireless box downstairs but as a test I've just booted it up to have a look. Indeed the wireless interface was being brought up even with IP and DHCP settings removed. Looking again at the network scripts it seems that /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless is bringing up the interface. The way to stop this is to :
to stop the script running when rc.inet1 runs. You can then do your stuff with the interface manually.

This is different than the behaviour of the standard ethernet interfaces which are not brought up unless either DHCP or an IP is set for them in rc.inet1.conf.

Edit: Alternatively just put an "ifconfig wlan0 down" in /etc/rc.d/rc.local. Best give an alternate plan perhaps !
Edit2: Another thought - you could just take the interface name out of /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf. That is have IFNAME[4]="".

Thanks, that was the trick!

I have /etc/rc.d/rc.inet.conf empty.
And make one script voor an wired at home and one voor script for the wireless with 3 choices for iwlist.

greats,

Theo