Detroit Chrysler sirens Old photo's

[EL1998P71]

I can't remember if I posted these before.
But these photos are copyrighted to Wayne State Univ.

Houstin Whitter and Gratiot Fire Station.
Siren being installed



I'm not sure what this one is, may be a first run Chrysler.
Building in the background is the now gone Hudsons Building.
So this siren is on the roof (truck in all) It may be ontop of the old City hall.
Also gone.



And this one was marked Detroit Fire department testing the siren.
Location unknown. But the siren may be running, since they are covering their ears.

[Crazywarriorman]

WOW! You got a photo of the earliest chrysler! Big Bertha! Those are some rare photos.

[Adam Pollak]

These pictures are up on the VictorySiren.com site, but the site appears to be down temporarily now. The first and third photos are of the WW II-era Chrysler-Bell Victory Siren, like it says painted on the steel beams. You can tell the difference between the WW II Victory Sirens and the Cold War Chrysler Air Raid sirens most easily by that the Victory Sirens have an extra part jutting out (part behind man in white suit's back in 3rd photo) where there is just a generally round blower on the Chrysler Air Raid Siren.

The photo of the Big Bertha is great also. Big Bertha's design was by far superior to the others' in concept, but the single-engine final product was much more practical. For all of the ingenuity that went into Big Bertha, it's amazing how the chopper disk drive belt looks like it would almost skim against that one horn it loops around.

There are very few photos around of the WW II Victory Sirens and it's still amazing to me how essentially all of them were taken down and generally not carried over for Cold War use or even just left in place. The only existing one I think we, as a community, know of is the one in China.

[EL1998P71]

I've sent victorysiren.com a bunch of detroit chrysler stuff, and it hasn't been updated. SO maybe now they are getting around to updating it.
Here's to hoping!!

[acoustics101]

The siren with the six cell hexagonal horn is a 95 HP predecessor to the 180 HP Chrysler known as "Big Bertha". It used a separate engine to drive the chopper. In some ways I feel that makes it superior to the Chrysler in that the output would not fall off with frequency as rapidly as a siren with a common shaft to both the blower and chopper. Because of this it would sound like a Thunderbolt on steroids and would actually outperform the more powerful Chrysler from a distance, as lower frequencies carry farther and penetrate structures better.

Knowing that E.C. Wente of Bell Labs had a part in inventing it, I was able to locate the patent. http://tinyurl.com/y9npxzd

It is similar in output and HP requirement to my own toroidal whistle.
http://tinyurl.com/yhyy7ty

[acoustics101]

You will note that there is a curious parallel to "Big Bertha" and my original "Ultrawhistle" prototype which preceded my 10 dB louder inverted, horn loaded "Dynawhistle". Both my Ultrawhistle prototype and Big Bertha were demonstrated on the back of a flatbed truck.

We achieved an output of 85 dB at 1 mile in tests of the whistle at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in July, 1982. The 70 dB radius extended to 2.5 miles. The tests were audible from the inside of moving cars from a distance of 2 miles from the test site. A friend heard the tests from his house in Delhi, OH.

http://tinyurl.com/ye6sdqy

http://tinyurl.com/ydvxsgw

My original prototype became this patent.
http://tinyurl.com/y8p3jbm

[Daniel]

I would love to hear some new tests of your whistles, particularly the horn-loaded version.

[Hacksaw]

How many db at 100 feet with that Dynawhistle ?

[acoustics101]

135 dB at 100 feet, but more importantly 95 dB at 1 mile at a frequency of 420 Hz. The high fundamental content of the frequency spectrum allows for the expected loss inverse square law loss of 6 dB/doubling the distance with an additional loss due to atmospheric absorption of only 0.8 dB/1000 feet. A typical warning siren has an atmospheric absorption loss closer to 2 dB/1000 feet due to higher fundamental frequencies and high harmonic content.

How many db at 100 feet with that Dynawhistle ?

[tboltkid520]

Anyone else notice that in that last picture, it has a Straight six and not a Hemi V-8?

EDIT: My mistake, it is an inline 8, had to look harder