[Madwifi-users] Bad link quality -- increase tx-power?

[<ern...@gm...>]

Hi,
I own a Allnet 0281 WLAN pci card and successfully use madwifi. The
only trouble I have is that I have a very low link quality, sometimes
even the connection breaks. But my PC  is only about 10m away from my
AP, and there is only one wood door between them. Link quality is
between 20/94 and 30/94. Is there any possibility to increase the
quality? Maybe by increasing txpower?
Is it save to try out different txpower values or do I risk getting my
card destroyed?

Here my output of iwconfig:
ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"xxx"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Access Point: 00:xx....
          Bit Rate:18 Mb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=3D0/3
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=3D27/94  Signal level=3D-68 dBm  Noise level=3D-95 d=
Bm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

You see that my bitrate often drops to 18mbit, although sometimes it
works with 48mbit (i have a 54mbit linksys router).

So: does increasing txpower help? Is it safe? (the manual doesn't list a va=
lue)

Thanks very much!
Kind regards,
Ernst