The Victoria Park Siren
Test Schedule: First Wednesday of the month at 1:00 PM
Activation: Radio on VHF frequency. System uses two-tone sequential
activation format.
Aha, what do we have here? Another 2001 hiding someplace sneaky!
This siren is in Victoria Park at the corner of Victoria and Medina.
Just like its twin at Heritage Elementary, this is an older-style 2001.
If you click on this picture (beware it is 1600x1200) you can read the words on the rotator casing (mainly FEDERAL)
Here's a shot of the control boxes.
This siren is evidently newer as it has always been radio controlled.
There are no telephone lines coming out of the ground like the other 2001
I walked a bit further away and zoomed in for this shot, using the zoom feature on my digital camera
This too is another very nice shot of Federal's fine 2001 siren.
Well, well, well.
You thought you could run away and hide from me, eh?
No such luck, bucko. Welcome back
At least when they moved it, it got a little cleaning up.
As you can see, this siren hasn't been up here very long.
I wonder if the children enjoy looking at it as they ride up to school
(or if it scares them)
As you can see, no muss, no fuss.
Same siren as before, just in a far superior spot, ready to scream away
You're looking at the radio decoder for this siren.
It has the most pathetic little rubber-ducky antenna that I have
ever seen
Unfortunately, you have to click and see the full picture to even spot
it (1600x1200, be warned)
I have checked, and the siren has moved, so apparently it can hear the
transmitter telling it to start up.
Here is what makes the 2001 so great... the battery box
This powers the whole shebang no matter what happens to the power lines
nearby
The sticker reads:
Warning! Batteries Inside. Authorized Service Personnel only.
(I don't count as "authorized", sorry)
Batteries need power to function, and here's the black box that does the
job
This is your battery charger
Now, remember how I was griping about that antenna before?
Now you get to see it. Pitiful, isn't it?
So, let's fly....
Here's a closer shot of the siren head from the side.
Looks like the deflector is bent. Ouch.
It didn't look like this when I took the picture, so it might just be
a camera artifact or a shadow.
Guess it was just a shadow. No damage apparent from this angle.
Just in case you had any doubt what this thing is, it tells you, quite
boldly...
FEDERAL 2001 DC
This rotator is exactly the same mechanism as the 2001's daddy, the
Thunderbolt.
Like father, like son.
Remember how I said there was a new siren? Here it is.
This siren is right along Highland Village Road. You can see Lake Lewisville
in the background.
I am not sure how long this siren has been here, but it has been a while.
This siren is a brand-new 2001 and has the newer long battery box compared
to the
older 2001s pictured above.
Doesn't look much different from its compadres from this angle, but wait, let me walk around front
See what I mean? This is the newer style of 2001 with the different center
cone
It's useful to compare this picture with one of the sirens above to
see the difference.
You can also quite clearly see the air intakes on the bottom of the
chopper box in this picture.
I've been looking for this one for close to a year, and thanks to some scanner
monitoring I finally found it.
This is at the Oak street pumping station in the very northeast corner of
Highland Village
I question whether or not this STH-10 is still active, as the Lake Shore 2001
is less than a mile away from it.
I'll try to get out here with a different camera that has a better zoom lens
to get a better picture.
The siren is way the heck back in this facility and is surrounded by homes
Like I said, its way back in there.
To close out the Highland Village system, we have another brand-new 2001
in the upper-class Highland Shores neighborhood.
This is much the same setup as the Lake siren, with the battery charger on
the left (with the black heatsink)
the battery box on the bottom (the large rectangle), and the controller/radio
receiver on the top.
The antenna is further up the pole.
Like I said, a new siren in a new spot.
No other known sirens in this system
I made this recording to submit to this years Siren contest but it never made it to its destination.
The recording was made with a Panasonic microcassette recorder set on the
roof of my truck parked about 200 feet away from the Heritage Elementary 2001.
The radio traffic was provided by my Icom T-7H ham handheld set on the roof
of the truck between the siren
and the recorder, set to the VHF frequency used by Highland Village for its
sirens and fire department dispatch.
The T-128s at the beginning are the Flower Mound system controlled by Flower Mound.
Please don't use the control tones maliciously.
With that said, enjoy the recording
