Possible problem with DHCP?

I need some help fixing a networking problem.  The network functions properly 
under Windows so I know the hardware is working.  The problem seems to be 
linux specific.  I have a wireless network in my house and I cannot get 
outside of my local area network. I am running Suse 9.0 pro and have a 
Linksys WUSB11 ver 2.6 wireless nic. I am using the at76c503 - linux driver 
for Atmel at76c503 based usb wlan adapters.  Ver  .10
http://at76c503a.berlios.de/

I can hotplug the wireless nic and it is detected and the driver modules load 
properly. I confirmed this by doing 
#>lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: P
at76c503-rfmd          39360   0  (unused)
usbdfu                  7820   0  [at76c503-rfmd]
at76c503               49824   0  [at76c503-rfmd]

I created ifcfg-eth1:
BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
MTU=''
REMOTE_IPADDR=''
STARTMODE='hotplug'
UNIQUE=''
WIRELESS_ESSID='linksys'
WIRELESS_KEY=''
WIRELESS_MODE='Managed'
WIRELESS_CHANNEL='6'
WIRELESS_NICK=''
WIRELESS_NWID=''

I then confirm the device is recognized and do a #> iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.
eth0      no wireless extensions.
sit0      no wireless extensions.
eth1      ATMEL RFMD503A  ESSID:"linksys"  Nickname:"linksys"
          Mode:Managed  Channel:6  Access Point: 00:06:25:55:C9:FD
          Bit Rate:11Mb/s
          RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality:100  Signal level:65  Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

So I issued an #>ifup eth1
warning: using NO encryption
ERROR:  command 'iwconfig eth1 nick linux' returned
        Error for wireless request "Set Nickname" (8B1C) :
        SET failed on device eth1 ; Operation not supported.
Starting DHCP Client Daemon on eth1... . IP/Netmask: 192.168.1.102 / 
255.255.255.0

The error messages are no biggie the important part is that I get an IP 
address.

I also check the config:
#> ifconfig
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:25:19:9A:3C
          inet addr:192.168.1.102  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::206:25ff:fe19:9a3c/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:58 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:63 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:6763 (6.6 Kb)  TX bytes:5274 (5.1 Kb)


When I issue #> route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1

Notice the missing gateway I cannot get outside my local area network.  I can 
ping the gateway but cannot get past it.  If I manually add the route then it 
works.

# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
default         192.168.1.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth1

So any Ideas on the problem?