I'm in ad-hoc mode, now upstairs, as far away in my house and through as many walls and floors as it's possible to be, on battery power on my laptop and all seems to be well. One 'puter reports "excellent" signal, the other reports "very good". Tomorrow I will do a range test from the adjoining park.
The manuals on the disks that came with my 650 and 520 discuss building materials and slant-range distances. I get the impression that brick and stone walls, or those with metal components in them, tackled at an angle from upstairs to downstairs could present a problem. You might have to go for a high-gain antenna or two just to get through your Victorian brick. I think I have an advantage with plasterboard and timber internals in the house. As you suggest, check it out with support. Good luck.
Many older houses here have convict brick
, and many newer homes are forsaking timber frames for steel (cost effective, resistant to termites which are a real problem here), with, I presume, adverse signal attenuation properties for our purposes. If you would like me to ask our Oz support folks about propogation probs, drop me a line.
Now for me it's onward to encryption and Zone Alarm configuration. (So far, each time I've re-enabled Zone Alarm I've killed my connection.)
Cheers
AA