This predated the propagation software that does it for you, so the survey was done the long way: driving the county, recording measured signal strength at point after point, then building the coverage heat maps in AutoCAD’s survey tools from the readings.
The towers were climbed and the antennas, LMR feed line and supporting infrastructure installed by hand.
Wireless coverage for a sheriff’s office in a large, largely rural county is an officer-safety problem before it is a networking one.
Outcome
Coverage a deputy working alone at the edge of the county could rely on — measured rather than predicted.