Why is the range on my IR emitter extremely low
You can try to gradually lower the 220ohm resistor to increase the Led power. Currently it's around 5mA guessing a voltage of 2V,usually leds like this can run at at least 20mA.
If you go too low with the resistor you will kill the Led, but given you don't have a datasheet, it's not a big loss and you can just buy one that you know the characteristics of, eventually of higher power.
If you buy another led of higher power, the 10k resistor will limit your current to about 130mA as the bjt has a gain of 300,you can lower that resistor to 1k if your new led needs more than 130mA.
Yes spectrum is important, you need to make sure the receiver has a good spectral response at your emitter emission peak to have the best sensitivity.