While it is not necessary to include this in your kernel configuration, you can enable Wireless tool extensions by going (i assume you use xconfig or menuconfig) to
Network device support |
Wireless LAN (non-hamradio) |
Hermes chipset 802.11b support (Orinoco/Prism2/Symbol) |
iwconfig |
iwspy |
The one thing I found this good for is that by repeated typing iwconfig, you can see your Link Quality. Its quite good