The confusing Cooper WAVES sirens and ripoffs

[Greenrid]

When I started looking around more on the siren board more and maps for countries other than the US, I've been noticing sirens that look like this a lot:



Unlike most sirens, I've seen these sirens named so many things like:
- Cooper WAVES
- HÖRMANNs
-ECNs
- I forget the rest

Here are my questions about this "series" of siren:
- With all of these brands of sirens, they look exactly the same. How do people even figure out what brand they are?
- Another thing is with all of these copies out there, who started copying who, and how are they able to? (they probably didn't patent the design)
- How many companies out there actually use this design?
- Don't they all sound almost the same? Wouldn't that mean that they were also copying the controls, too?

[HudsonRiverSirens]

I can answer one of your questions, which is that they don’t all sound the same. WAVES sirens are the prime examples, as far as I know they have never used European tones despite sourcing their boards from SirCom.

[Greenrid]

I can answer one of your questions, which is that they don’t all sound the same. WAVES sirens are the prime examples, as far as I know they have never used European tones despite sourcing their boards from SirCom.

So, they still do copy their control boards off of other companies, but change them. Wouldn't that make SirCom come before WAVES?

[echo1030]

When I started looking around more on the siren board more and maps for countries other than the US, I've been noticing sirens that look like this a lot:



Unlike most sirens, I've seen these sirens named so many things like:
- Cooper WAVES
- HÖRMANNs
-ECNs
- I forget the rest

Here are my questions about this "series" of siren:
- With all of these brands of sirens, they look exactly the same. How do people even figure out what brand they are?
- Another thing is with all of these copies out there, who started copying who, and how are they able to? (they probably didn't patent the design)
- How many companies out there actually use this design?
- Don't they all sound almost the same? Wouldn't that mean that they were also copying the controls, too?

I am no expert in the field of these HPSA arrays, but my local siren system consists of dozens of these HPSA’s & I do know a thing or two about them. For the American market… before being branded as Cooper Waves, I believe they were sold under the brand name MadahCom here in the USA. The array design & controls comes from Hormann/sircom IIRC, originally a European design used extensively in Germany & other European countries. Some of the MadahCom’s/Waves were known to run a 850/1020hz dual tone signal, although much raspier than the UltraVoice. Most MadahCom/Waves sirens used the standard 1000hz tone with no wind up/down. Almost all of the Waves/MadahCom’s in Hawaii have been retrofitted with UltraVoice controllers & sound just like any other single tone federal signal siren. There are several posts on the board about the American versions of the HPSA’s that will explain the controls far better than I ever could, listed below…

viewtopic.php?t=22047

viewtopic.php?t=25990&start=10

[Modufgh1]

They use european horns, that's why they have impressive voice clarity.

[HudsonRiverSirens]

The person to ask with any of these questions is most certainly DJ2226. He did a ton of research a couple years ago and the thread still exists on this board.