Hi @hartman9, in my experience with 433MHz CC1101 transceivers I also find that their range is pretty poor, so I only use them with rtl_433_ESP devices. For my general RF gateway i use a SRX882 receiver and STX882 transmitter, which I find to have substantial better range.
Have you also tried adjusting the CC1101 frequency to 304.0, to see if the range improves, which possibly would also be better with a dedicated 315Mhz version CC1101?
Hope this helps.