Welcome to The Howland Company

1975

Ray Howland founded The Howland Company in 1975. At that time, the company focused on design and consulting for long-haul microwave point-to-point networks. Over the next 15 years, a great deal of the US’s long-distance telephone traffic was carried on networks designed by The Howland Company.

1980s

The Howland Company expanded its expertise in anechoic chamber design to two new fields: Radar Cross-Section (RCS) measurements and large Installed System Test Facilities (ISTF).

Customers included Motorola Government Electronics Group, Grumman, the Navy’s Pacific Missile Test Center, Hughes Aircraft, Sandia National Labs, E-Systems, and Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. We also designed many outdoor antenna ranges for companies like Ford Aerospace, Nynex, and General Electric.

We also consulted on the design of several ISTF projects, including the MESA facility at China Lake and the Point Mugu Bistatic RCS chamber, and we led the concept design study for the ACETEF facility at Pax River. These facilities are key elements of US military R&D infrastructure and continue to prove their worth decades later.

1990s

In the mid 90s, The Howland Company was selected by Motorola to design a multi-range antenna test facility at the company’s Illinois headquarters. This complex included a custom outdoor offset arm spherical near-field scanner for testing cellular phone antennas on automobiles and trucks.

Motorola asked The Howland Companyto design an indoor version of the offset arm scanner to meet the requirements of the CTIA Over-The-Air (OTA) test specification. This was the beginning of the Wireless Test Lab product line and the company’s entry into the wireless device test market.

2000s

The Howland Company entered into a license agreement to manufacture and market wireless test accessories designed by Motorola.

We continued our support to the defense and aerospace sector, with clients including Lockheed Martin, Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Lab and Marshall Space Flight Center, the Air Force and Army Research Labs, and Boeing Phantom Works. Our work in the RCS arena focused on the design of RCS test facilities for production-environment measurement of complete airframes.

2010s

The Howland Company also worked with the Navy’s design team for the two control centers for the MQ-4C ocean surveillance drone constructed at Jacksonville, Florida. There, we developed some novel RF shielding techniques to address special security requirements. On all of these projects we worked with the construction contractors and all the building trades to ensure the RF shielding and anechoic work was accomplished efficiently.

The Howland Company manufactured and installed 20+ Wireless Test Labs for a leading mobile device manufacturer, cementing our Model 3500D Wireless Test Labs as a reliable industry standard.

With the advent of the IoT, we have worked with customers to ensure their internet-enabled products are designed and manufactured to the highest standard.

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