FWIW, I just tried to echo 0x30 to /sys/devices/platform/wlan-omap/default_country, set my access point to channel 13, restarted wlancond and I could connect.
Mind me, /etc/init.d/wlancond restart doesn't work, I have to do a stop then a start (I think it's a timing issue, wlancond restart never worked reliably).
With the default value (0x10) it doesn't even list my access point.
The "funny" thing is that I cannot revert to 0x10 (not that I want it to): it will stay set at 0x30 even if I echo 0x10, I have to reboot to go back to 0x10.
Didn't touch any environment variable.

Edit: oh, and I checked with iwconfig that it was actually using channel 13 (2.472GHz).
Edit 2: (in case it is relevant) I am using diablo turbo kernel.