Eclasses replaced

[Brendan Ahern]

Oak Lawn Illinois just completed a full replacement of the siren system. 6 new 2001-130’s replaced the 7 Eclasses. 5 new sirens are on existing poles. 1 was moved 20 or so feet to accommodate a cell tower. The only speaker array not directly replaced is the one on the roof of the village hall. That was added a year or so after the rest of the system. It has also been removed. I will post some pictures of the eclasses when they were installed, as well as some of the new sirens.

[HudsonRiverSirens]

This system was DOA lol.

[Randomizer]

Oak Lawn Illinois just completed a full replacement of the siren system. 6 new 2001-130’s replaced the 7 Eclasses. 5 new sirens are on existing poles. 1 was moved 20 or so feet to accommodate a cell tower. The only speaker array not directly replaced is the one on the roof of the village hall. That was added a year or so after the rest of the system. It has also been removed. I will post some pictures of the eclasses when they were installed, as well as some of the new sirens.

Jog my memory...

Was this the system that replaced a relatively new (at the time) system of T-128s under the ill advised plan to broadcast voice messages in every language on earth during a warning? Then when that turned out to be the clearly bad idea it was, started playing a recording of T-128s?

If so...what a waste of money and resources.

[DJ2226]

Oak Lawn Illinois just completed a full replacement of the siren system. 6 new 2001-130’s replaced the 7 Eclasses. 5 new sirens are on existing poles. 1 was moved 20 or so feet to accommodate a cell tower. The only speaker array not directly replaced is the one on the roof of the village hall. That was added a year or so after the rest of the system. It has also been removed. I will post some pictures of the eclasses when they were installed, as well as some of the new sirens.

Jog my memory...

Was this the system that replaced a relatively new (at the time) system of T-128s under the ill advised plan to broadcast voice messages in every language on earth during a warning? Then when that turned out to be the clearly bad idea it was, started playing a recording of T-128s?

If so...what a waste of money and resources.

I don't recall them replacing T-128s. If I'm not mistaken, they replaced some older second-generation 2001-SRNs (2001-DCs). Yes, this was the multilingual system you're thinking of. They were set to broadcast messages in like 5 different languages with a brief blast of alert between each message. They ditched the messages for the recording of a T-121. If I had to guess, the harsh tone probably took its toll on the drivers and blew them out. They could have just run them in alert, and if the pitch was an issue, they could have modified the Molex connectors on the logic boards and ran them on the low-tone side of the tone generator. Low tone alert peaks at a nice mellow 575 Hz, and it would have given the amps and drivers a nice clean tone to work with. I think the reason they went with the tone recording is because it allowed them to just switch the DVM boards around instead of having to reprogram the system. Message 1 was probably the test message recording, and message 2 was probably the warning message recording. They did use two recordings on that system that consisted of a one minute alert and a three minute alert, so it looks like they probably just swapped the recordings in place without needing to change anything else and called it a done deal. At that point I'd rather have the mechanical sirens back.

[Brendan Ahern]

Original system consisted of 5 2001’s installed around 1991. Replacing them with the eclasses was ill advised for sure. The person responsible no longer works for the town. The system failed the monthly test in June of last year. It was repaired and failed again. So they bit the bullet and decided to go back to 2001’s. I always figured the eclasses would last 10 to 15 years, and they lasted 12.

[Randomizer]

2001s. That’s it. My error. I just remember it being a silly replacement.