Geography is horrible, my home is in a highish part in the middle of a valley approximately 25 miles mountain range to mountain range tallest peaks are east of me about 9000 ft and I am roughly 4000ft ASL so a 5000 ft elevation difference over 15ish miles. To the west and north not as bad, call it 3000 ft difference. I am in the southwest. Lots of open range from town to town. But also a lot of foothills, and random peaks in the 3-6000 ft ASL range.

Side note, I have a uv5r that I found at work, a lot of the construction crews around here use them, although I'm pretty sure they are not supposed to. Haven't played with it much and I keep my booger hook off the transmit button, there are a lot of aerials in my town so finding a club to take test pick up info shouldn't be difficult I'm thinking about picking up a few more of the 5rs getting my girl to take the test as well if for nothing else, if cellular goes wonky for whatever reason she knows it's me coming through the front door.

Thanks for the info, it's helped out a bunch, and I'm going to be spending some time looking up "stealth antennas" now 😀