It took at least a month for Margie and I to adjust to the thin air relative to sea level the elevation here is 5000 feet.
Joe
Pretty cool move, Joe. That was a major effort, and finally, you're settled in.
The mountains around you will have no ill effect on the signal for the HF bands since their apparant "blocking" angle is probably less than 5 degrees or so on the horizon. Your 160-10M signals will have cleared them way before.
Good luck with the tower plans. For 75M, my suggestion would be to hang a boom and pair of inverted vees - feed them just like Tina/W1IA as a driven array. That will work really FB for both RX and TX. If you have room in the right direction, add a terminated Beverage for RX to the east. Use the staggered HUZman technique if you are limited for space. A few wooden posts is all you need for supports.
Another idea is to put up a full-size 40M ROTARY 2el Yagi. Big sig on 40M. Can you get the tower to 90' or so? Then heavily load the Yagi at the center for 75M as a shortie 75M 2el Yagi. (Remote controlled switching) There are ways to do this and you would have a clean installation without wires hanging around. A 2el 40M Yagi is not THAT big. Looks like the neighbors are far enuff away too...
Something to think about over the winter.
OK on the 5K elevation. When I lived out west it was the same thing. Coming home I felt like Superman for a few weeks. The MMA fighters should train out there.
I haven't been radio-active since spring, but hope to get on 75M soon for coast to coast and catch you on.
Later -
T