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Re: Federal Thunderbolt and ACA Hurricane questions
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 3:52 pm
by holler
The Thunderbolt was a way better siren. You could pull a chopper motor on on a Tbolt without removing the horn or taking down the siren. Same thing goes for the rotator mechanism. With a Hurricane you had to remove the siren head, tear it apart, then put it back together again.
For an all steel siren the tbolt was easy to make. The sheetmetal was a simple box with bends that could be easily made, the horn was just 4 pieces of steel pre bent that were welded together at the seams. Early ones had hand welded horns done with a stick welder (big thick bead) while the later ones appear to have welds done with a wire feed welder. You could tell on an old horn were they ran used up the welding rod and switched to a new one.
Re: Federal Thunderbolt and ACA Hurricane questions
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:47 pm
by SirenMadness
uncommonsense wrote:Holy run on sentence! What are you trying to say? What do you mean by distortion and removing distortion? That makes no sense whatsoever. And ACA would have been surprised to hear the Hurricane was never offered in a single tone configuration.
I think what he meant by distortion was the classic "dial tone" you hear out of the two-tone Thunderbolts.
Re: Federal Thunderbolt and ACA Hurricane questions
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:28 am
by coastalsyrolover
Yea and sorry I was a bit tired when i wrote that. But yes the dial tone, harsher, sound that came with the dual tone choppers. It's more distinct and from what I heard it carries further... But you may want to fact check me on that one. If that fact is correct i got it from a source that says both the single and dual tone thunderbolts sound carries furthest of ALMOST any other siren even the ones that pass it in DB just because of its tone. The low end of the attack signal at least will because of that blower!
Re: Federal Thunderbolt and ACA Hurricane questions
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 11:11 am
by holler
The single tone Thunderbolt is a BEAST. Even if they did sound like a pi**ed off vacuum cleaner.
Re: Federal Thunderbolt and ACA Hurricane questions
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 9:36 pm
by justie1220
holler wrote:The single tone Thunderbolt is a BEAST. Even if they did sound like a pi**ed off vacuum cleaner.
that has to be the most amusing comparison of a siren to a house hold cleaning tool ive ever heard Jeb

Re: Federal Thunderbolt and ACA Hurricane questions
Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 12:41 am
by WhelenBoy
Thanks again for the insights, Jeb. Both of my 1000's have the thick-beaded and uneaven, fat welds on their horns. This proves, even though I already know, that both of my Thunderbolt's are pretty old.
