With the $16 no-name antenna attached to the WRT54GC, my scores
increased tremendously. As you can see from the graphs, gains are noticeable right across the board. Bedroom signal strength went up from 1-2Mbps to 54Mbps under most tested conditions (the exception being one pot test @
48Mbps). As for outside the front door and in the storage room, I could actually pick up reliable signals where there were no signals before. This breathes life into the possibility of sharing WiFi (and the monthly bill) with a neighbor.

As for moving the antenna to the alternate location (antenna 2 tests), it didn't make as much of a difference as I expected. Scores moved up as well as down, but overall performance difference appeared to be negligible.