Best bid for Springfield,IL sirens?

[scooterbugs25]

http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/90095.asp

I found this long "detailed" article interesting about Springfield,IL siren upgrade, I hope you find it informative.

[Trey]

The mayor is nuts. Why would you choose a Cold War system when the ASC bid is lower than what these old sirens would cost!? Or am I just reading this wrong? I know my town did the same thing, we bought two 2T22s a year ago.

[Brendan Ahern]

The mayor isnt choosing actual Cold War era sirens. It looks like hes choosing American Signal T-128's. I guess the issue is that its essentially the same technology as the old system as they are mechanical, whereas members of the city council favor electronics. Springfield needs a new system though. Old sirens consisting of various old federals. Ive seen an sd-10 on a pole and a tbolt 1000 on the roof of city hall. They are landline controlled.

[Trey]

Sorry I misread.

[jkvernon]

Ok, well I posted my 2 cents on there. It should be up soon. Anyway, kudos for Springfield!

[12kvLive]

I put my 20 buck and some change into the replies on the article.

[cdvtripleseven]

All this B.S. throwing around the word "technology."
Aren't speakers and amps decades old "technology" too?
What the hell? Saying that an ACA T-128 system is 50's "technology" is a load of B.S. It's midleading and stupid. It can be compared to calling a 2006 model car 50's technology. A 2006 car is still an internal combustion engine burning gasoline. Sure, there are electronic controls all over the thing reducing emissions etc etc but it's still a 1950s design. Actually with new electromechanical sirens they probably have less in common with 1950s sirens because they now use DC motors to allow the thing to use battery backup and they have fault monitoring etc. The only thing they have in common with old sirens is a chopper and stator.
I really liked this quote.....
"Chris Ginder, a salesman for Global Technology Systems, said if a speaker is knocked out on an electronic siren, it will still function, albeit with reduced sound. But if a turbine is knocked out on an electromechanical siren, it will not work, he argued."
Those siren "turbines" get "knocked out" all the time don't they? Oh brother.


And here we go again with this...
"Should a tornado occur at night, is there a better chance of hearing it indoors if you had 76 sirens or 57 sirens? I truly believe if the citizens of Springfield had voted on the type of system they wanted the results would have been much different."
Then those same citizens would have been voting for an "OUTDOOR WARNING SYSTEM" to wake them up at night if the sirens sound when severe weather comes in. It's an OUTDOOR WARNING SYSTEM not a wake people up in the middle of the night indoor warning system. Imagine the screaming and freaking out from those who would have voted for a system to wake them up in the middle of the night if the sirens didn't wake them up in an emergency.

[Jim_Ferer]

Good points, all. As far as waking up the citizens goes, it would probably be better to buy them all weather alert radios. (I can't imagine living in tornado country without one.) The CD system went off by "accident" in the middle of the night a couple of times when I was a kid and it didn't wake most people up, and that was a dense system.