Telecommunications Industry Association Creates New Specific Standard for Land Mobile Radios

Suwanee, GA, March 22, 2015 --(PR.com)-- Standard TIA 4950

This new standard is: Requirements for Battery-Powered, Portable Land Mobile Radio Applications in Class I, II, and III, Division 1, Hazardous (Classified) Locations, ANSI/TIA-4950-2013.

UL 913 5th Edition will be withdrawn by 2018 and will be replaced by UL 913 8th Edition. The 8th Edition creates a much more stringent assessment for intrinsic safety by referencing UL 60079-0 and UL 60079-11 for the majority of the requirements. These standards are aligned with the IEC publications. There are some obvious differences between the standards and specifically pertaining to radio devices, the limit on RF power threshold. The following are the limits: Group IIC (Hydrogen) – 2W, Group IIB (Ethylene) – 3.5W, Group IIA (Propane) – 6W.

A table within the latest SafeGuards bulletin (http://newsletter.sgs.com/eNewsletterPro/uploadedimages/000006/sgs-safeguards-04115-us-new-standard-land-mobile-radios-tia-4950-a4-en-15.pdf) summarizes the ambient temperature, related UL 913 8th edition and TIA 4950 power specifications for small components.

Note: TIA 4950 does not specify a maximum wattage requirement; however general rule is 5W or less.

Differences in Standards for Land Mobile Radios

There are a significant amount of additional differences in the standards and the following are some of those differences:

UL 60079-0

- Non-metallic enclosures testing for thermal endurance, resistance to light and electrostatic charges.
- Metallic enclosures require material compositions specified.

UL 60079-11

- More stringent 1.5 safety factor applied for spark ignition assessment.
- Current Limiting Resistor test is not allowed.

Because of this, a new standard was developed to meet the needs for future land mobile radio products that have higher RF power.

SGS was recently accredited to the following standards: UL 844, UL 783, NFPA 496, TIA 4950, FM 3600, FM 3610, FM 3611, FM 3613, and FM 3620.

Reference:

TIA issues New Requirements for Battery-Powered, Portable Land Mobile Radio Applications in Class I, II, and III, Division 1, Hazardous (Classified) Locations Standard, TIA Online (http://www.tiaonline.org/news-media/press-releases/tia-issues-new-requirements-battery-powered-portable-land-mobile-radio)

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