Twin Cities Sirens

[Melvin Potts]

Which road were you on? 494? I don't really get out to EP too much. Good find!

I don't recall the road. I was on one of a fleet of buses headed for the Wooddale Church. This siren was located across the road from exit the bus took for Wooddale.

[Dieselfan66]

[quote="holler
There is nothing wrong with Federal sirens, they do the job they are designed for, and the Modulators around here have been far more reliable than the Whelens in a nearby city.

Not every city needs electronic sirens either, they are expensive, quirky, and if you don't use the voice capability there is no use in buying them.[/quote]

And the Whelens around here have been far more reliable than Federal 2001s and the only modulator. Go figure.

[holler]

Well, our Mods have held up better than the vortexes in a nearby town. Maybe your Whelens are better than our Whelens.

[Charlie Davidson]

[quote="holler
There is nothing wrong with Federal sirens, they do the job they are designed for, and the Modulators around here have been far more reliable than the Whelens in a nearby city.

Not every city needs electronic sirens either, they are expensive, quirky, and if you don't use the voice capability there is no use in buying them.

And the Whelens around here have been far more reliable than Federal 2001s and the only modulator. Go figure.[/quote]

There is nothing wrong with Whelens and there is nothing wrong with Federal sirens. They all do their job that they are designed for and are very reliable from what I've seen. Jeb has a point, if you don't intend to use voice then there is no sense in purchasing an electronic siren unless you intend to use some kind of voice function, or from the city's point of view, if it's cheaper than going mechanical Driver replacement can sometimes be a hassle, but in the end they are worth it if they help save thousands of lives.

ATI is just the only siren company that makes unreliable and poor quality products.

[murrfarms]

Whelens aren't too good either. The only one that's been reliable out of the 4 we have is the one I recorded over by the golf course, but that is because it's only a few months old. The other 3 have developed a habit of blowing drivers yearly now, and we've had one have a total meltdown control-wise at the end of last year. If it isn't a driver/amp problem, it's an activation problem; the last tornado warning, one didn't go off the first time, then it activated the second time and another failed to activate. These aren't even old sirens either, installed in 1995. I just hope we don't get those pieces of junk in our new system.

[holler]

You forgot the 3016 by the water tower that croaked a few years ago. I think they squeezed 10 years of service out of that one.

[murrfarms]

You forgot the 3016 by the water tower that croaked a few years ago. I think they squeezed 10 years of service out of that one.

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that one. The city replaced it with an older 4004 that used to be at the end of our road, which they moved out there. Speaking of, that's one of the 2 that gave them problems during the last warning we had.

[Dieselfan66]

Here's a quote from a Nuclear Plant Safety inspection of the Nuke plant near the twins cities. This system is federal 2001s only.

"During the first monthly test conducted on January 1, 2006, 81 of 81 sirens were
successfully tested. However, on February 5 and March 5, 2006, the monthly siren tests
resulted in 47 of 81 and 50 of 81, respectively, successful siren tests."

Happy I don't live there.

[holler]

I'm not a 2001 fan either, and most of Federals problems are caused by controller issues and software glitches.

That's why I still like my AR timer.

[Charlie Davidson]

Here's a quote from a Nuclear Plant Safety inspection of the Nuke plant near the twins cities. This system is federal 2001s only.

"During the first monthly test conducted on January 1, 2006, 81 of 81 sirens were
successfully tested. However, on February 5 and March 5, 2006, the monthly siren tests
resulted in 47 of 81 and 50 of 81, respectively, successful siren tests."

Happy I don't live there.

That doesn't sound very pleasing..

Federal should have made their controllers more simple, instead of being so advanced. More features means more room for error, that's why my siren controller is being designed to keep things simple, and have expansion ports to add what you want, when you want it.

The 2001 siren itself is perfectly fine, but their controllers are not the best. Time to drag out the good 'ol RCM cabinet and AR timer!

(Random topic, but wouldn't it be cool if the 2001 had a solenoid? That would be good to have another signal..Pulse.)