USB wifi dongle range, low/normal?

[chewbacca810]

I am trying to get my mom's laptop wireless, so I bought 2 usb dongles (heh, dongle), put one on my main computer, and one (of course) on my mom's laptop, and set them up in adhoc mode. It took forever, but I finally got them working right. Anyways, the range on them sucks (i think), as soon as I get out the door of my apartment, the signal drops down to -83db and I can't even ping my main box (going through 3 sheetrock walls and 1 exterior wall). Does this sound about normal? Shouldn't it go a bit farther than that?

here's my iwconfig:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"minenotyours"
          Mode:Ad-Hoc  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Cell: 26:07:F3:5D:08:EA
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power:20 dBm   Sensitivity=-117 dBm
          RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:97/100  Signal level:-62 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:42  Invalid misc:172325   Missed beacon:0

That's with the laptop 1 room over. Any info appreciated.

[rong]

Range is usually about 1/2 what the mfg state. So if yours is 300', then under 'normal' conditions expect about 150'. But as you probably know there are a number of things than can decrease even the norm such as wires, metal structures, other wireless activities in the area. And it does not take much to cause a problem with these things.