Hi,
I ported my RFM70 Driver from Ver 0.22 to 1.0.1 some month ago, but I never tried if still works under 0.22.
But as you see in my log output, at least with IDE 1.0.1 and Atmega 328P/16MHZ/5V it works over a distance of several meters.
But as I am using only GPIO functions, I don't see any problem to use other ATMEGAs, I used the same driver on an ARM Cortex M3 (also GCC) successfully, changing only the PROGMEM to Constant and and the GPIO Read/Write commands.
Nevertheless, if you still have problems use the low level debug by uncomment the //Serial.print commands in the RFM70.cpp file, this gives you the information what realy happens on the SPI level together with the datasheet. This was very useful for me at the beginning for debugging.
One more info for you:
It is also possible to use W_ACK_PAYLOAD_CMD (RFM70.Send_Packet(W_ACK_PAYLOAD_CMD,tx_buf,len); ) to do a toway communication with only one side transmiting, see the RFM70 datasheet. Use the RFM70.TxEmptyFlag(); function to avoid TX buffer overflow.
Fred