Sadly, I don't have a solution (other than to say the same card will connect to infrastructure, but not Ad-Hoc, on 12, 13 in Ubuntu with generic regulatory domain - least common denominator settings).
However, I want to add the person above is 100% correct. In reality, there should only BE 4 channels in the 2.4 GHz 802.11g/n band - 1, 5, 9, and 13. If 11 is in use around you DO NOT USE 13, 11 will be FASTER. 802.11b recommended 22MHz channel spacing, so 1,6,11 were used. It was idiotic to ever have 802.11b and idiotic to ever have channels other than 1,5,9,and 13. The idea was to allow you to avoid other NON-WIFI uses of the band that are much narrower. In reality, Wi-Fi exploded and it just caused Wi-Fi users thinking a different channel is better (like you) to trash the band.
If you use a channel already in use, both networks can avoid causing each other interference. If you use a partially-overlapping channel - like 13 - the traffic on channel 11 is just pure noise to you.
Also, number of networks visible isn't what matters most - channel utilization is. One network run by someone downloading constantly is far more meaningful than five ran by little old ladies checking email. You need to use a spectrum analyzer to determine channel utilization at various times of day, and then set yourself to 1, 6, or 11 if those are the channels used around you. If at all possible avoid any channel that has an overlapping network near it (like if someone's using 4, avoid 1 and 6, if someone's using 13 avoid 11, etc).
The laptop is a Sony vaio subnotebook PCG-4L1L – dtech – 2011-07-22T20:22:53.813