Madision Hts, MI Thunderbolt may soon be silenced forever

[EL1998P71]

I drove by the incinerator this past friday. The T-bolt is still there, but it has a new neighbor.




T-bolt is to the left by the smoke stacks, and to the right of the traffic light is it's new neighbor. My chance to rerecord it has now passed.

[500AT]

What a bummer, another run-of-the-mill 2001. I would not have minded if they would of went with a ASC T-128 or better yet, a T-135. Sadly, during the last test in the Ann Arbor area, three 2001s failed to activate, two of which, are not even a year old.

[500 AT fan]

NOOO! That's one of the best T-Bolts you recorded, Eric! Stupid 2001s. Could they NOT have tried to have gotten a T-128 instead? Those are roughly as loud as a T-Bolt! Is anyone going to save that T-Bolt? I hate to see old sirens like it go to the scrapper.

[EL1998P71]

I have a call into west shore services regarding the fate of that t-bolt as well as the oak park one.

[ver tum]

That was a rare 4/5 port TBolt too! I hope you or someone else can save it!

I'd like that 2001 a whole lot better if it was full of bullet holes... Sorry, I just had to vent.

[SirenMadness]

What a shame! That is one nice-looking T-Bolt. At least it's replaced with a 2001-130, and not a 2001 SRN-B! Now THAT would have sucked!

[TSMaster5150]

What a shame! That is one nice-looking T-Bolt. At least it's replaced with a 2001-130, and not a 2001 SRN-B! Now THAT would have sucked!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't FS replace the SRNB series with the 130 series?

[500 AT fan]

No offence to anyone, but, they're both pretty much the same sqealing siren to me. And yes. The 130 (Or, as Federal labeled it once, the 2001-SRN-C,) superseded the SRNBs. Doesn't mean they're better, though.

[ver tum]

The SRNB and the 130 sound pretty much identical to me, except that some 130's have that problem with fluctuating pitch with rotation.

[acoustics101]

It seems as if many of the Thunderbolts nowadays are being replaced by 2001s. Just because they may have the same dB rating at 100 feet doesn't make them equal in coverage and penetration. The 2001s don't maintain their output in the wind down where it counts as do the Thunderbolts, due to the fact that their blower and chopper share a common shaft. As the RPMs reduce, so does the blowing pressure and output, along with the frequency.

This is not the case with the constant air pressure supplied by the Thunderbolt's external blower that is separate from the chopper. We should all know by now that lower frequencies propagate and penetrate better than higher frequencies. This all falls apart when you cannot maintain output at the lower frequencies. Warning devices need to be judged by more than a simple dB rating at 100 feet, but by their frequency spectrum as well.

What a bummer, another run-of-the-mill 2001. I would not have minded if they would of went with a ASC T-128 or better yet, a T-135. Sadly, during the last test in the Ann Arbor area, three 2001s failed to activate, two of which, are not even a year old.