Say you are just 1 mile from a friend, at 151Mhz the fresnel zone is 72ft tall. If you are both at equal elevation on flat land then 50% of the signal is going to be absorbed by the ground. How exactly does this scenario work?

Source: I used to build outdoor medium distance (~1mi) wireless data networks with 900Mhz and at 1 mi the fresnel zone is roughly 30ft tall so we would put our antenna 20ft in the air. The awesome thing is we could shoot through a mile of forest but only if 60+% of the fresnel zone was not occluded by the ground.

Edit: I should also add that I would have loved something like this in Iraq. Next to keeping soldiers fed, coordinating with adjacent units (read: not shooting at each other) on foot during a mission is about the biggest challenge there is.