I operate out of a small development in the Texas Hill County area called Canyon Lake. Elevation here is just shy of 1000′
There is a small mountain to the south-west, but the low dipole antenna height seems to easily launch the signal over it, and into the South Pacific on a regular basis. I’d like to think that living well outside the cities makes it a lot easier to hear those weaker signals.
I have been a HAM operator for a couple of years. I initially used my FT3DR on our local VHF/UHF repeaters and it was quite enjoyable. But I got the itch to get into HF, so I tested for my General in December 2019, and finally bought an FT-991 at the end of 2020.
In April 2021 I bought a G5RV antenna and got my feet wet in HF with FT4 & FT8 digital modes. I was hooked, and really started getting serious about completing some award quals. Getting all 50 states proved to be harder than I thought, but with some careful re-deployment of the G5RV (first N-S then E-W) I was able to get those tough contacts made and confirmed.
Since then I “upgraded” to a Radiowavz 80 OCF (Windom). It’s a lot easier to use and requires virtually no tuning for the just about anywhere in the bands. Although the trees around the house are plenty, and I can run a wire antenna in just about any direction I want, none of them are more the 30′ tall, so there are always some strange patterns coming off the rig.