distance issues, like 6 feet or more

I have 3 usb wireless devices using the atmel chip. two smc units and a
linksys. they all work but anything over 20 feet fails to reconnect upon
reboot. I can use these same devices with windows and that issue doesnt
exist. I am running a wireless linksys router that has a strong signel. I
have been trying tofind a device to allow me to move my server into the
next room out of the way but have yet to find a device that will go the 20
feet to do so. the walls arent concrete or anything. in fact the devices
work fine in that room or even the other end of the house with windows
(yuk). I have bought 4 pci cards also trying to achive the same. one of
the cards is a cisco 350 pci and I have yet to make it work in any fashion
at all. I am really wondering if I will ever get this to work. funny if I
use a laptop and a pcmcia card, atmel or prism chipsets work great. I am
running redhat 9 kernel 2.4.20-28.9 and kernel-source 2.4.20-28.9.
 I have added the following line to /etc/rc.d/init.d,,,,, " iwconfig wlan0
essid dell ; ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.135" . If I do not do this I need
to ssh into the box and issue the same command manually to get it
working. could this be a firmware issue?  I am using at76c503-0.11.
here are some of my stratup logs

Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: at76c503.c: Generic Atmel
at76c503/at76c505 routines v0.11
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: usbdfu.c: USB Device Firmware Upgrade
(DFU) handler v0.11
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: usb.c: registered new driver usbdfu
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: at76c503-rfmd.c: Atmel at76c503 (RFMD)
Wireless LAN Driver v0.11
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: usb.c: registered new driver at76c503-rfmd
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: usb-uhci.c: interrupt, status 2, frame# 109
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: at76c503.c: load_ext_fw_block failed:
-32, i = 0
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: at76c503.c: $Id: at76c503.c,v 1.35
2003/07/30 06:31:51 jal2 Exp $ compiled Feb  7 2004 17:31:38
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: at76c503.c: firmware version 1.101.2 #84
(fcs_len 4)
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: at76c503.c: device's MAC
00:04:e2:98:d4:2c, regulatory domain FCC (U.S) (id 16)
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: at76c503.c: registered wlan0
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5
seconds
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on
ide0(3,1), internal journal
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered
data mode.
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: hdd: attached ide-cdrom driver.
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: hdd: ATAPI 16X CD-ROM drive, 128kB
Cache, DMA
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
Feb  7 19:22:47 2:47 localhost kernel: ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter
core team
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:11.0
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:07.2
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: 3c59x: Donald Becker and others.
www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: See Documentation/networking/vortex.txt
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: 00:11.0: 3Com PCI 3c905B Cyclone
100baseTx at 0xdc00. Vers LK1.1.18-ac
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel:  00:c0:4f:1e:ab:d0, IRQ 11
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel:   product code b430 rev 00.9 date 07-03-97
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel:   8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split,
autoselect/Autonegotiate interface.
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel:   MII transceiver found at address 24,
status 786d.
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel:   Enabling bus-master transmits and
whole-frame receives.
Feb  7 19:22:47 localhost kernel: 00:11.0: scatter/gather enabled. h/w
checksums enabled
Feb  7 19:22:48 localhost xinetd[2276]: xinetd Version 2.3.11 started with
libwrap loadavg options compiled in.
Feb  7 19:22:48 localhost xinetd[2276]: Started working: 2 available services
Feb  7 19:22:50 localhost xinetd: xinetd startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:22:50 localhost vsftpd: true startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:22:51 localhost mysqld: Starting MySQL:  succeeded
Feb  7 19:22:53 localhost sendmail: sendmail startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:22:53 localhost sendmail: sm-client startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:22:57 localhost spamassassin: spamd startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:22:57 localhost gpm: gpm startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:02 localhost httpd: httpd startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:02 localhost crond: crond startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:05 localhost xfs: xfs startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:05 localhost xfs: ignoring font path element
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic (unreadable)
Feb  7 19:23:06 localhost smb: smbd startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:06 localhost smb: nmbd startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:06 localhost anacron: anacron startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:06 localhost atd: atd startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:06 localhost rhnsd: rhnsd startup succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:06 localhost rhnsd[2465]: Red Hat Network Services Daemon
starting up.
Feb  7 19:23:07 localhost rc: Starting webmin:  succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:08 localhost rc: Starting wlan0_load_config:  succeeded
Feb  7 19:23:08 localhost kernel: at76c503.c: using BSSID 02:00:1f:19:fb:92
Feb  7 19:59:54 localhost sshd(pam_unix)[2609]: authentication failure;
logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=NODEVssh ruser= rhost=192.168.1.110  user=root
Feb  7 20:00:11 localhost sshd(pam_unix)[2609]: session opened for user
root by (uid=0)
Feb  7 20:03:29 localhost rhnsd[2465]: Exiting
Feb  7 20:03:29 localhost rhnsd: rhnsd shutdown succeeded
Feb  7 20:03:29 localhost rhnsd[2717]: Red Hat Network Services Daemon
starting up.
Feb  7 20:03:29 localhost rhnsd: rhnsd startup succeeded

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