The Siren Board

I just came across some news articles warning that San Francisco’s system of ATI’s, known for using recordings of the old system of STL-10s, will be tested for the last time and become inactive for “up to 2 years” beginning next week. The information seems to indicate they may be replaced during this time.

Here’s just one of them:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc7news.c ... w/5732342/

What could be in store over the next 2 years?...

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East Coast Siren Enthusiast & Railfan
YouTube: Thunderbolt Railfanning Productions

The sirens were installed in 2005, and since then only small maintenance tasks (batteries, etc.) have been carried out. This system upgrade is consisting of a full maintenance program, which should include controller upgrades, driver replacement, etc. I still fail to see, however, putting an entire vulnerable community at risk for 2+ years while you work on individual sirens. Wouldn't it just be easier to take the siren you were working on offline?

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-Nik VW
Owner and Proprietor of NVW Systems - Northern Michigan's Community Alerting Service
Account more or less abandoned, not on here often. Use Discord to communicate with me.

I was actually in San Francisco for a brief time last summer. I happened to be there on a Tuesday, but was not able to hear them go off, as I was having lunch with a childhood friend who now lives there. I did of course see several of the ATIs around town, as well as the Ferry Building Thunderbolt and Fort Mason Model 5.

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Resident of a county with big a mixture of sirens, but in the process of being replaced.

There was some techie guy who pointed out some vulnerabilities with hacking of the system a year or 2 ago. It might have something to do with that. But I'm hoping they will be putting in a new, better system. Time will tell. At least they take having sirens seriously.

Why would it take so long to do maintenance on them. It's not that big of a system. Just to use St Louis County MO as an example, they have around 200 sirens in their system of Whelens and the whole system has never been taken offline. Same with Little Rock AR and Oklahoma City. Two things that have been spent in over abundance on San Francisco's system is time and money.

Honestly, two years to replace the WHOLE system doesn't sound too crazy, however, if I were them, I would replace them in zones so that there are at least a few sirens active in case something goes awry. I expect some kind of San Andreas thing to happen, this time, no siren warnings.

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Very proud owner of a Model 2, 2 A’s, 2 D’s, J, 76A, Interstate Machines F, & a Sparton 35
Siren documentation since 2012
22, & stuck in the heartland

Chicagosiren-hunters wrote: *

Thu Dec 12, 2019 2:15 pm

Honestly, two years to replace the WHOLE system doesn't sound too crazy, however, if I were them, I would replace them in zones so that there are at least a few sirens active in case something goes awry. I expect some kind of San Andreas thing to happen, this time, no siren warnings.

Shutting off the sirens for two years for upgrades or replacements makes absolutely no sense in the slightest. Two systems can run together, many places do this. Most often setup is along the lines of some old two tone system and some new system with FSK or something, but same principle can easily apply to having two systems. All that'd need to be done is set the polling times slightly different and, if automatic testing, create a slight offset by a minute or so between the two systems.
Then when all is said and done and no more of the old sirens are left, the old activation equipment can then be removed. I'm really struggling to comprehend a reason why it would be straight up shut down for two years.

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I own: One complete SiraTone, another SiraTone control module, a 1600W MC, 2 old ATI controllers, 2 round ATI horns with drivers, a ATI-DSA 4 thing, a Federal Signal FC, AR timer and Siratrol, and a small CD&F.

carexpertandy wrote: *

Mon Dec 09, 2019 2:18 am

Fort Mason Model 5.

Are there any photos of it?

Jake_7367 wrote: *

Sun Dec 29, 2019 4:03 pm

carexpertandy wrote: *

Mon Dec 09, 2019 2:18 am

Fort Mason Model 5.

Are there any photos of it?

Check out this old thread:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4463&hilit=San+Francisco+Fort+Mason

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Resident of a county with big a mixture of sirens, but in the process of being replaced.