@Barbara Jackson yeah, the skepticism is completely fair — you've clearly been around RF long enough to know how these numbers usually get cooked.
So the 50km figure is the drone-to-drone case, meaning both modules are airborne. That's actually the key thing: once you eliminate ground reflections and multipath interference from both ends, you're basically operating in a much cleaner RF environment, and that's where the receiver sensitivity optimization really gets to shine. It's not a "giant antenna on a rooftop" scenario — these are the same compact modules, just both elevated.
The 15-20km spec is the more relevant number for your UAV telemetry use case, since that's the man-to-drone scenario where one module is on the ground paired to your phone or ground station and the other is on the aircraft. That's still a genuinely useful operational range for most UAV work, and it's achievable without exotic setups.
The honest caveat is that terrain, RF noise environment, and how well you mount the module on the airframe all matter — same as any RF link. But the specs aren't derived from some fantasy rooftop-to-rooftop test. If you're doing long-range telemetry and your ground station is stationary, 15-20km is a realistic working range to plan around.
