By the way your wireless adapter should be named wlan0
The iwlist command will give a list of options that look like this: usage: iwlist [interface] scanning [interface] frequency [interface] channel [interface] bitrate [interface] rate [interface] encryption [interface] key [interface] power [interface] txpower [interface] retry [interface] ap [interface] accesspoints [interface] peers [interface] event
All of these options can give you various detailed information about surrounding wireless networks.
If you type in iwist scanning it will give a out of all wireless networks available to you with an output like this: wlan0 Scan completed : Cell 01 - Address: 00:14:BF:75:31:FD ESSID:"Len" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11) Quality:2/94 Signal level:-84 dBm Noise level:-154 dBm Encryption key:on Bit Rate:1 Mb/s Bit Rate:2 Mb/s Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Bit Rate:18 Mb/s Bit Rate:24 Mb/s Bit Rate:36 Mb/s Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Bit Rate:6 Mb/s Bit Rate:9 Mb/s Bit Rate:12 Mb/s Bit Rate:48 Mb/s Extra:bcn_int=100
This gives you the Network Name, MAC address, Frequency, encryption and much more. This information can be used to join your preferred network.
If you are monitoring certain access point you can type in iwlist accesspoints and get the listing of each nearby access point with the MAC address.