The Siren Board

And I thought Ft. Benning was bad with some of the Whelens they have. Some one has got to record them. My mind has been blown. O_o X_X

What in the world?! Five 128 db 2909s in plain sight?! I mean....there's asinine and there's that. The sheer volume would be astounding.

I assume the 3016 is being retired. It would be completely ineffective surrounded by so many omni sirens anyway.

There's a place in Milpitas CA that is almost as bad. At Dixon Landing & Milmont:

To the west, Whelen by light pole:



Viewing south, another Whelen:



A little further down Milmont:



Nearby:





With 2 others in the area.

I've seen something like this at some sort of plant in Talledega, AL. They are Modulators but I can't remember the exact model number of them but I would say they are either 6024,6032 or 6048s. I think there are two or three in plain sight maybe one-hundred yards apart from each other.

Thunderbolt10031 wrote:...I think there are two or three in plain sight maybe one-hundred yards apart from each other.

This is Chicagoland in a nutshell! (Not that close, but still definate overkill)

And I thought the Battle Creek, MI, ANGB had excessive coverage (two Mod 4016s about half a mile apart)!

Realistically, I can come up with two reasons that the USAF may use such heavy coverage in their bases. First off, it could be that, because of the mandate to switch from mechanical sirens and separate PA systems to electronic sirens with voice, they just replaced each PA speaker installation with a siren.

However, what I suspect is more likely is the noise environment. Military aircraft are *loud*, with jet engines designed for performance rather than quietness. Particularly near the flight line, any AFB is gonna be really noisy during operating hours, and many of the on-duty types will be wearing hearing protection, by regulation. (A friend who was an A-10 mechanic says that the standard for AF personnel on the flight line is plugs *and* muffs any time an aircraft engine is running, and plugs just for being on the line even if nothing's running.) So you've got a very noisy environment, and people wearing hearing protection. That's a lot of dBs to drown out, and a lot more dBs of attenuation to overcome--so you need siren coverage that'd be unacceptably, ear-bleedingly loud for most applications, just to get sufficient coverage out on the flight line...

For what's its worth......

Back in the late 80's thru the 90's I was in the United States Army....did duty at several military post here in the U.S ... one thing I recalled, back then, there were sirens (some cold war era units..some newer) as well what looked like a cross between a speaker array that you might find on top of a church...the kind they play chimes on...and some multi horned electronic siren ( some 70's - 80's era Tornado siren?) that was used to play Revelry and Taps on as well as a P.A device.

I can recall seeing both types of these sirens/devices in some what close proximity to each other compared to what I was used to seeing in Shawnee Co. (Topeka) Ks.

I have never been on post during a Tornado warning , so I can not vouch for the 2nd. sirens? speakers? being used as an outdoor warning device...I suppose that someone from post command could have also used those for Tornado warnings along with the sirens that,no doubt, I knew where used for that.

I've heard that with government funding things, it's pretty much "spend all of it or lose out the next time". If you're given 3 million to spend on a project, but only spend 2 million on it, the next time you need funding for that, they'll see you only spent 2 million and decide that's exactly how much you'll get this time, even if the planned costs exceed what you spent last time.

In this case it seems like someone realized the sirens can be used as voice and bought/placed them based on usage as a PA system, despite the fact that most PA speakers don't have anywhere near the power or range of those speakers.

Meanwhile, Whelen and/or some dealer are laughing all the way to the bank - they got millions for a completely overkill project and they can now brag that they did work for the government.

Decided to give this a bump as I've found another great example of overkill coverage.

Found this in Dana, Indiana - a small town (0.29 square miles) about 78 miles west of Indianapolis.



Photo from http://indianafiretrucks.com/Station.as ... ionId=1318

I cannot for the life of me figure out why a siren that size is needed there. Maybe they wanted to provide coverage for all the farms in the area?