Alter wireless device timeout setting?

[pcatiprodotnet]

My wireless freezes for about 6 to 25 seconds duration every few minutes in certain situations (due to atheros driver bug).
Is there a settings to reduce the time it waits between freezing, timing out and working again?
Perhaps one of the sysctl settings is what I seek?  I would like to reduce the timeout setting at boot.
sysctl dev.ath.0
Thanks,
-Pete

[update]  FIXED:  "ifconfig ath0 -burst" (placed in a startup shell script file) cleared up all of the known issues we had with our existing 2.4 wireless network. Thanks aldo!!  Also, batching a command such as this to run every so often helps reduce ping times.