@Joseph Rodriguez good questions, and you're clearly coming at this from the right angle technically.
The 50km figure is the drone-to-drone number — both modules airborne, which eliminates ground reflections and multipath almost entirely. That's where you get the clean link budget that supports that kind of distance. For your use case with a ground station on one end, you're in the 15-20km man-to-drone territory, which is still well beyond anything else at this price point but worth setting expectations correctly before you design your link margin around the headline number.
On antenna setup — the module uses an external antenna configuration, and that's a big part of how it achieves the sensitivity numbers it does. For a UAV telemetry build I'd think about antenna placement on the airframe carefully (keeping it clear of carbon fiber and ESCs) and on the ground station side a directional antenna with a tracker would obviously push your practical range further if you need it.
As for terrain and vegetation — honestly any significant obstruction at these ranges will bite you, not because the module is weak but because physics doesn't negotiate. Water and elevated terrain are naturally favorable. If you've got rolling hills or tree cover in the path you're going to see degradation, and I'd plan for that in your link budget rather than assume clean LOS. If you want to share more about your specific deployment scenario I can probably give you a more grounded take on whether the spec fits your use case.
