also, I've tried the sequence where first I type wifi then wifisetup

@Luciano-S. Yes, correct. When connected over serial, I have done the following with the respective results:

1. action: wifisetup > selection 1 (scan for wifi networks)
   result: ERROR: no networks detected... try again in a little while

2. action: wifisetup > selection 2 (type network info)
   result:

[ 325.520000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0-1: link is not ready
[ 325.790000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
Checking wwan device status...
wwan is not up!!
Checking internet connection...
ERROR: request timeout, internet connection not successful
Disabling network on iface 1 ...
Done!
root@Omega-220D:/# [ 364.680000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 364.750000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready

1. action: edited wireless config file (located at /etc/config/wireless) to try and broadcast AP
   result: no AP broadcast

Maybe I have defective hardware?

@Luciano-S. yes, the problem is there are 20+ wireless networks in range of the omega. If the omega can't find a single SSID, there has got to be a different problem.

@Luciano-S. thanks for the reply! I can't even scan for wireless networks. Each time I do, it returns "no wireless networks found, try again later..." Any thoughts?

Even right after a factory reset though, the ap is not broadcasting. Here is the ifconfig output:

lo

Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:720 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:720 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:48960 (47.8 KiB) TX bytes:48960 (47.8 KiB)

wlan0

Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 40:A3:6B:C1:22:0E
inet addr:192.168.3.1 Bcast:192.168.3.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::42a3:6bff:fec1:220e/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:40 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B TX bytes:8560 (8.3 KiB)

Also, trying to connect to a network produces the following:

Connecting to PooP network using intf 1...
[ 513.790000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0-1: link is not ready
[ 514.060000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
Checking wwan device status...
wwan is not up!!
Checking internet connection...
ERROR: request timeout, internet connection not successful
Disabling network on iface 1 ...
Done!
root@Omega-220D:/etc/config# [ 554.190000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 554.310000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready

still not seeing the ap broadcast

@Lazar-Demin ahh.

@Lazar-Demin just did the factory restart. It is currently hung at the following during boot:

[ 31.220000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 31.320000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
[ 59.070000] random: nonblocking pool is initialized

Also, if I run wifi in terminal, I get the following:

[ 132.770000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0-1: link is not ready
[ 133.590000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

and it hangs, I have to ctl+c to exit