Page 1 of 1

Setting off your county's sirens

Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:33 am
by Saintjimmeh
So I've seen multiple videos on youtube of people setting off their county's siren tests, which makes me curious about a couple things.

Have any of you gotten to do this? What was it like? Finally, if I wanted to do this in my county, what would be the best way to go about this? I've already been in contact with the person in charge of the siren tests before so I've got the "who" part down, it's more of what to ask at this point.

Re: Setting off your county's sirens

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2019 1:49 pm
by OHIO Desperado
Need to interject something here as the guy that gets to have the headache of figuring out why a siren or sirens went off when they weren't told to by the people having the authority to do it. DO NOT EVER attempt to set off sirens as a joke, or to prove you can or any of that outside of the authority having control of them knowing you are doing it.

I have been through this a couple times. It's a pain in the butt to try figuring out what happened. ANd I have been guilty of it twice while working on sirens while testing one I was working on, and a second siren was close enough that it heard my low power radio command and activated as well as the one I was working on. It freaks people out. And legally, it's called inducing panic. Like yelling fire in a movie theater. I even go as far as calling the 911 center and informing them while I am testing a siren at my shop so when they get calls they know why and can let callers know it's just a test.

Point is that I was once young and dumb and did crap like hooking a siren to the door bell the scare the vacuum salesmen off my porch.
Te cop that showed up tried to not laugh as he was giving me a stern talking to about inducing panic and going to jail for a long time.

Re: Setting off your county's sirens

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2019 5:01 pm
by Unit of Civil Defense
...I think where the O.P is coming from is setting off the sirens from the control panel, computer or what ever his county/city uses, under the supervision of who ever is in charge of doing so, present.
As far as what the experience would be like....depends ....
Here in Shawnee Co. Ks. if they where activated from either the 911 dispatch center or the Emergency Management office you would not hear them. If they where remotely activated via the lap top , then you could be standing right next to the siren.

Re: Setting off your county's sirens

Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2019 11:36 pm
by Saintjimmeh
Unit of Civil Defense wrote:
Sat Jul 13, 2019 5:01 pm
...I think where the O.P is coming from is setting off the sirens from the control panel, computer or what ever his county/city uses, under the supervision of who ever is in charge of doing so, present.
Ah yes, sorry I should have clarified but I do mean activating the actual scheduled test, with explicit permission/supervision from the person in charge. I'm definitely not interested in causing a panic and getting into all sorts of legal trouble!

Next test day is the 2nd of August; I think I'm just going to wing it and send them an email. At the very least I hope I can see their setup up close. Wish me luck!

Re: Setting off your county's sirens

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 5:42 am
by TNSirens
I've kinda done this. I got to tour the Putnam County TN EMA office. It was snowing, so the director didn't activate the sirens. They have a very simple setup. A touchscreen monitor, with buttons like, "Cookeville Sirens: Off", "TTU Sirens: Off", etc (I will have a picture below). Also, here is a video about how they activated the sirens early for a warning. In the video, you can see a view of the office. https://fox17.com/news/local/putnam-cou ... before-nws

Re: Setting off your county's sirens

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 4:57 am
by Saintjimmeh
Welp, I can now confirm that Kent County, MI emergency services do not allow tours or siren activations from the public, due to personal info on their monitors. Might try Ottawa County next.

Re: Setting off your county's sirens

Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2019 12:42 pm
by Nudgy
Saintjimmeh wrote:
Thu Aug 08, 2019 4:57 am
Welp, I can now confirm that Kent County, MI emergency services do not allow tours or siren activations from the public, due to personal info on their monitors. Might try Ottawa County next.
Saintjimmeh,

I am a resident of Ottawa County, MI. You might like these videos. From what I can tell, ALL sirens in Ottawa County run FSK and all of them have two-way capabilities. Ottawa can even activate their sirens in quadrants, cities, or even one at a time; using their SS2000+ base station.

Video 1
Video 2