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Baytown, TX's Old System - Some Interesting Finds

Fri Jun 29, 2018 3:05 am

I was checking out the Texas siren map yesterday looking for older DSA style ATI sirens out of curiosity after looking back at the post on here from about 5 years ago about pre-2003 ATI heads. One of the towns mentioned was Baytown, which was suspected of having a system of ATI HPSS16s using the older head. There is a video online of one of the sirens going off in whoop, and it sounded like an analog Whelen panel. I think the assumption was that it was the ATI running a "custom tone" a.k.a. a recording of a Whelen in whoop. This might not be the case anymore with what I found. I'll link the video below and a map of the locations I discovered at the end of the post.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQi8D_Ey4cQ

Upon looking at the city on the map I seen a bunch of Modulators. No surprise there. When I randomly picked out one of the older MOD5020's and turned the Streeview date back to 2009 it revealed that they did indeed have old DSA style ATI's. I then noticed a random Whelen WPS-2016 marked in the city. I thought it was a DSA that someone mislabeled, but the Streetview shows that it was a Whelen. The arrays are set up as a bidirectional siren instead of an omni. Initially I though it was for the nearby plant, and as I searched the area I found 5 others in the same configuration. Something I found odd with these is they were installed facing away from the plant. Typically you'd expect to see omnis inside the perimeter of a plant's property. There's also a WPS-2008 that uses 2 of the 400 watt arrays facing towards the water. Below is the location of the one marked on the Texas map.



After this I looked at the sirens at Chevron Phillips. They have a DSA6 of sorts on the grounds of the plant. I couldn't get direct sight of it through Streetview, so I browsed the area around the interstate. When I finally was able to see it I noticed what I thought was one of the city's or plant's DSAs that wan't marked on the map. When I moved to get a closer view of it I found out it was another 2016. It's bidirectional and configured like the other ones. Like the others it points away from the plant and to the city. Searching around the area of the plant I found two others. Here's a link to the first one I found:



It seems kind of odd since they were all configured in the same way. The controls for the sirens have an extra box attached to the pole. Knowing that the WS/WPS-2000 series was out long before ATI even started producing sirens and how faded the horns on the arrays are I suspect that it might be possibly an ATI RTU or an auxiliary radio of sorts.

I then found this DSA marked on the map in a 6X4 bidirectional configuration. I initially though that this replaced an ATI of sorts, possibly one where it used two of those big 800 watt arrays like the ones in Ventura. More power more better. I set the Streetview back to 2009 and seen what I thought was one of their ATI's. I could tell it was setup in a 4X4 bidirectional config instead of an 8X2 since the arrays had a split in the middle that made them slightly uneven, but after having a closer look it turns out that it was another bidirectional Whelen WPS- 2016 using the same setup. They actually reused the old pole from the Whelen it looks like. Considering the other two plants were surrounded by Whelens, I decided to check the area out around the nearby Bayer plant. Sure enough I found 4 other 2016s.



Knowing now that these were placed around plants I dug deeper into their system and checked out this MOD5020 near International Group. With the Streetview set to 2009 you can see another siren there. At first glance it looks like an ATI, especially going by the controls. A close up reveals that the controls are indeed ATI, but interestingly enough the head itself appears to be a 2016, making this the first non-ATI electronic siren head being driven on an ATI panel. It's the only omnidirectional 2016 I was able to find, which kind of makes sense given the area it covers. I'm assuming this was installed here due to its proximity to the plant. The odd thing here is the controller. Why would they replace the Whelen controller with an ATI one? The only thing I could think of is maybe the controller blew its guts and needed to be upgraded. With that said the ATIs that were in this system were really early units that had a painted steel enclosure to house the components. ATI didn't switch to stainless until around the time when Nashville got their system in 2003 to my knowledge. This one has an older controller, so it's beyond me as to what happened to this one. Either it broke down very early on or was upgraded to give it more functionality like the surrounding HPSS16s, maybe something like the ability to do voice or something.



Image

So what about the other sirens in the system? Well pretty much every MOD5020 on the map with the exception of the one above replaced an ATI HPSS16 with an older head. None of the others were Whelen's from what I could tell. As for the current system, it's all MOD5020's, MOD5020B's, and and at least one DSA with the Modulator II's being added within the last few years. The Whelen's left standing seem to be inactive and abandoned in place unless the siren installation was directly upgraded. If I had to take a guess the Modulators and whatever DSA's they've installed do an ample enought job at covering the area that they don'tNone of the ATI's survived, which is kind of sad considering the few known systems of these rather rare ATIs have either been replaced or abandoned in place like the one in Ventura, CA.

In conclusion it appears that Baytown operated a system of Whelen WPS-2016/2008 sirens located basically on the perimeter of the plants in the area in case of a HAZMAT spill to warn the immediate area. They later installed ATI HPSS16s in the city to blanket the whole area with coverage and possibly placed all of the Whelen's onto this system with the use of either a RTU, custom radio, or direct controller replacement. Of course everything was replaced with the Modulators and DSA's.

As for what was heard in that video, I'm leaning Whelen. I'm pretty sure that even these older ATI's had digital controls, so the exponential windup in the whoop wouldn't seem right unless it was just playing back a recording. The person who took it lives close to the Bayer plant, so there's a good chance that this was in fact a Whelen doing whoop and not the ATIs. They have another videos online of the ambiance in the area after the Modulators and DSA's went in, and the ambiance was not anywhere near as loud and clear as the original video. I believe the person is on the Siren Enthusiasts group in Facebook, so hopefully we can get a little more insight as to what sirens were being heard in that recording.

Here's a map of all of the sirens I found in addition to some of the Modulators not on the statewide map:

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Re: Baytown, TX's Old System - Some Interesting Finds

Fri Jun 29, 2018 5:31 pm

That sound definitely sounds like an early WS-2000 to me. The pitches and signal match almost perfectly. Nice detective work!
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Re: Baytown, TX's Old System - Some Interesting Finds

Mon Jul 02, 2018 1:34 pm

That was a lovely read. Full of mystery.
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Re: Baytown, TX's Old System - Some Interesting Finds

Mon Jan 13, 2020 1:47 am

I have some Modulator locations for you that don't appear to be on your map.

W Archer Rd & E Rd (5020B)
Baytown Youth Fair Cell Tower (5020B)
Market St & Main St (5020B)
W Texas Ave & Laredo St (5020B)
Greenbriar Rd & W Shreck Dr (5020B)
Red Bud Ln & N Holly Dr (5020)

I also have some points to be made known, if not known already:

- As for the Bi-Directional WS-2000's positioned around the refineries, I can confirm them being inactive as I haven't heard a peep out of them and the ATI arrays since 2008 and were left inactive until Goddard installed the Modulators in mid 2010. Exxon, Chevron Phillips, Covestro (formerly Bayer), and others all now their own individual on-site alarm systems and follow their own testing schedules; some in conjunction with the city.

- In 2011, the Covestro Plant installed those directional DSA-6X4's that directly replaced the WS-2000's that surrounded the plant and for a little while tested them in conjunction with the city for a year or two and I haven't heard them since. You are missing a couple of locations for those (29.74972, -94.90272) (29.77457, -94.90239). The United Salt Corporation next to Covestro has a Whelen WPS-2803 that is visible from the road (29.75167, -94.90239)

- As for Civil Defense Era, an article has been found by Brendan W. from newspapers.com stating the Baytown Refinery (Known as Exxon today) had a 1953 Thunderbolt and name checked former Fire Station 3 as well that was tied into the Houston Civil Defense System there but has since been removed. The towns of Highlands & McNair both have inactive Model 5's at their respective Fire Stations that were likely tied in with the CD system.

- Baytown tests their sirens weekly on Wednesdays @ 9:00 am for approximately a minute regardless of weather; CommanderOne does a phenomenal job at "auto-testing" the system thanks to Logan. The refineries Exxon & Texas Petrochemicals also test in conjunction with the city.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask!
- Andy Eitel

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Re: Baytown, TX's Old System - Some Interesting Finds

Mon Jan 13, 2020 4:40 pm

In addition to Andy's post, I also have two ATI controllers that came from Baytown's old system.
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.

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