sentry rotational

[jgardner48]

Has sentry made a rotational siren?

[4J25]

Yes they did, and it was called the Sentry Defender. It was rather short lived, and I believe it had a few issues.

[SuperBanshee]

I went through some old flyers and brochures. Sentry's first rotating siren was known as the SS-3. Introduced around 2001-2002, it was an 8 horsepower siren with battery backup, producing 127 decibels at 100 feet. Normally Sentry preferred non-rotating sirens however this SS-3 filled in the void for customers who felt that rotating sirens were more desirable.
Sentry held a contest on the old WarningSirens forum to give the SS-3 a new name - eventually, the name "Defender" was chosen in 2004. The winner was Jeff Miller, who was subsequently given an E-4 siren.

Promotional, 2003.

The "Defender" usually came with an 8 port rotor (460 hertz) but it could be ordered with a 16 port rotor (920 hertz) if requested.
I cannot find anything suggesting it suffered from mechanical problems however many old posts on this forum state it was never a great seller. Perhaps it was the result of tough marketing, or the fact that Federal and ASC had already established their own rotating sirens some years prior - whatever the case, Sentry quietly discontinued standard production of the "Defender" by 2010. I believe they can still build the "Defender" on special request however I know of no new examples that have been installed.

From Ed Wise's old site.

I will freely admit I have no hands-on experience with this siren so this is just an opinion. Despite the "Defender" being something of a sales dud, I think it was a cool design. Looked neat, sounded good, and the 127 decibel rating was ideal. I wish at least one would have made it in Wisconsin.

From Sentry's site.

SentryDefender.png (39.33 KiB) Viewed 3424 times

A video of one being tested, from Ed Wise's old site.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApkFwAkS7BQ

[siren fan]

I recall seeing a picture of one around the Durant, Oklahoma area.

[Spencerlovestrains]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4T4OJIhwtc

Issues like on this one in Argos, IN. You can hear that it's somewhat sick, and the horn is shaking violently. According to Sirenfan1000, this defender probably doesn't work anymore.

[DJ2226]

I think the batteries in that one are about to kick it in. As for the violent shaking I think either something isn't greased properly or something got lodged in the rotator's gears. The one in Durant is still there, but its controls have been removed as the city has migrated to a system of T-128s and I-Force 2400s.

From the general impression I've seen they aren't all that loud though. The design of it wasn't as optimized as something like the T-128 or 2001, so in the long run the siren ended up literally being a rotating 7V8-B output wise. The chopper itself is bigger and much louder than the Model 3 or Eclipse, but the sound it produces exits the ports and rams into the shroud instead of being projected out - it's like stuffing 4 Whelen 400 watt drivers in a garbage can with duck tape and expecting it to be as loud as a Vortex R4.