TIA celebrated the 60th anniversary of providing guidance in the structural design and fabrication of communications towers with our engineering standard ANSI/TIA-222, Structural Steel Standards for Steel Antenna Towers and Supporting Structures.
According to Marianna Kramarikova, TIA’s Senior Director of Standards and Program Development, “The ANSI/TIA-222 standard is well known among those who build new communications towers or modify old structures, but for those that may be less familiar, here is a brief history into this important standard that has been and continues to be a foundational piece to empowering connectivity.”
Kramarikova said In 1959, EIA-RS-222 was established as a revision of TR-116 and RS-194. It was a 12-page document developed by the TR-14 engineering committee on Microwave Relay Systems for Communications. EIA-RS-222 was developed to provide a uniform method of specifying and calculating tower designs which applied to steel transmitting antennas and supporting towers.
“As taller towers (up to 2,000’) became widespread in the 1980s, a new revision of the structural standard EIA-RS-222-C was released and integral to the tower community,” she said. “It took into account new information about tall towers which supported broadcast antennas. Effects of wind and icing became more apparent and were addressed in later editions of the standard (Revisions D, E & F) as well.”
May 2, 2019
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