Can anyone suggest a PCI or USB 802.11G card which will work in Master/AP mode in Ubuntu without having to compile and drivers. I want to create a wireless bridge from my ethernet network connection on a bedroom server I am building and have given up on my zd1211 based USB dongle.
An external aerial jack also would be be a plus.

This place has a huge list of cards: http://linux-wless.passys.nl

You want a card which will take the "mode master" configuration from iwconfig. For example:
iwconfig eth0 essid "myessid" mode master

You also need the layer that provides authentication etc - for example 'hostapd'. At the moment, hostapd claims to work with:

* Host AP driver for Prism2/2.5/3,
* Prism54 driver for Intersil/Conexant Prism GT/Duette/Indigo,
* madwifi driver for cards based on Atheros chip set (ar521x),
* Any wired Ethernet driver for wired IEEE 802.1X authentication.

Did you check 'tldp.org' to see if there is a 'how to' on creating an Access Point?