dropping wireless link

[D]

This one is driving me up the wall. Any help is welcome.

When I boot into Gentoo and run the init scripts or run the net-setup 
command I get connected to my AP no sweat. But the link only lasts 
between 15 seconds and an hour before all of a sudden iwconfig reports 
that I'm not assocf

Anyone know why this is and how to fix it? It's not a distance issue as 
I tested it sitting TWO FEET from the AP and had the same result. If I 
reboot then again I get a working link for 15 seconds to 1 hour. I'm on 
my Acer Aspire one with an internal Atheros chip (AR5B93 according to 
the the Windows driver), used with the  default Kernel driver for such a 
chip (ath5xxx).

Thanks in advance