@Joseph Davis good question, and honestly a really important one to ask before you commit to a build.
So the 50km figure is drone-to-drone, both modules elevated with zero ground reflection interference — that's the ceiling, not the typical number. The ground-to-ground spec is 5km, which is the more relevant baseline for a fixed telemetry deployment where both ends are at roughly terrain height.
For your use case — rural property, rolling terrain, tree lines, metal structures — you're going to land somewhere between those two numbers depending on how you deploy. The biggest lever you have is antenna height. Even getting a module up 3-4 meters on a mast makes a meaningful difference because you're clearing ground clutter and extending your line of sight. Metal sheds are probably your worst obstacle because they reflect and scatter pretty aggressively, so if critical nodes are near those you'd want to think about placement carefully. Tree lines cause attenuation but not as brutally as metal — dense wet foliage is worse than dry, for reference.
The honest answer for your scenario is that 5km ground-level is a reasonable conservative floor, and with thoughtful antenna placement on even a modest pole you could realistically push that significantly further across open rural terrain. If you can share roughly how spread out the equipment is and whether any of it is on elevated ground naturally, I can give you a more specific read on whether this is a good fit or whether you'd want to plan for relay nodes.
