Wireless setup on DELL 8500

The wireless assitant does not see any access points.

In the network configuration it shows it as disabled and won't let me enable it.

I'm very new to (k)umbuntu

what kind of wireless adaptor is it? I have a new lenovo laptop, the brodcom 43xx would never work. Same as yours, it is there but cannot be enabled. I had to buy a linksys pc card. that works great.

here is some more information:
irq:11
           *-network:1 DISABLED
                description: Wireless interface
                product: BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
                vendor: Broadcom Corporation
                physical id: 3
                bus info: pci@02:03.0
                logical name: eth1
                version: 02
                serial: 00:90:4b:b1:d9:27
                width: 32 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
                configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bcm43xx driverversion=2.6.17-10-generic link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11b/g

Hello StuartGregg,
have you in your /etc/iftab an entry for that device?
For example (mine):
----
# This file assigns persistent names to network interfaces.
# See iftab(5) for syntax.

eth0 mac 00:16:36:86:34:c9 arp 1
ath0 mac 00:16:e3:76:1e:e6 arp 1

----
udevd uses this file and I'm not sure what happens, if you haven't a entry in there. I could imagine that that could mean that this network device is disabled. For more information about this file simple type in a terminal: man iftab. If there is no entry, you must add an entry for that missing device.

Mr Canis