The Siren Board

Holy crap. I never saw that coming!

I wonder if there are any others still in the wild. Even 2750s are few and far between these days...

That's definitely an interesting siren. In regards to the cabinets, the extra bit that you see on some of them, Surry's system for example, is to house extra radio equipment, RTUs, etc. Type III Whelen cabinets did exist back then and were equipped with the 4008s in Plano and Seabrook's EPZ (both made in 1992), obviously this 2790, and early production 2800 series sirens (2807s in Lea Co. NM and 2808 in Taylor Lake Village, TX), but the total amount of amps they could hold is a bit of a mystery like the oddball Type II cabinets. The oldest Type II cabinets prior to the release of the first ESC-864 analog boards could only hold 4 amps. With the 864 we seen that increase to 5 to make way for the 2020 and eventually 2750, however at some point they managed to squeeze 6 amps in them as seen with Dearborn's old 2760s and various 2806As found around the country. They then went back to 5 with later iterations of the controller. It seems that the Type III cabinets have had their fair share of this as well, since the earliest one we've seen up to this point was equipped with the 4008 in Friendsville, TN and could only hold 8 amps. At the same time this siren comes out equipped with a panel that can hold 9 amps. Obviously later iterations of the Type III front panels could hold 10. Hopefully if they ever replace that system someone can snatch up that 2790 and give us a peak inside the panel. I would guess that the amps on the front panel are arranged differently compared to more modern implementations of the 864 panels unless they just stopped it at 9 cells because of the naming... 2710 would have implied a 400 watt siren so they'd have to call a 10 cell omni a 27100.

Here's a picture of Friendsville's 4008 controller. And yes, that is an analog 864... and yes that special jumper needs to be moved. Hopefully I can get a recording of it and one of Oak Ridge's T-135ACDC's next summer if I can go on a small vacation to Chattanooga around June.

DSCN8818 by 4j25Sirens, on Flickr

https://www.facebook.com/FVFDTN/videos/ ... 138906532/

Wow, that's a really nice picture. I wonder who took it...

Jokes aside, it really is interesting how much we are uncovering about Whelen these days. I still have yet to learn what the different controls look like, but I'll get there!

murrfarms wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:02 pm

There was indeed a WPS-2790 in the original 2700 series lineup, and it also seems that the WPS-2760 didn't make its debut until much later on in the 2700 series timeline. Here is an excerpt from an old brochure that Whelen put out sometime in the '80s that shows the then-current 2700 models, which you'll notice not only includes the WPS-2790 model but does not list the WPS-2760 as a production model at that time.

So..., No WPS-2770 Or WPS-2780

The thing about older Whelen sirens is we don't really know due to the fact that they didn't archive and post all of their literature online - computers weren't really out back then like they are now, but considering that the 2750 was only 3 dB quieter in the cutsheet it's safe to say they didn't, which is probably why the 2760 isn't listed here. They didn't get into detailed models with a bigger range of cells until the 2800 series came out in 1994.

murrfarms wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:02 pm

There was indeed a WPS-2790 in the original 2700 series lineup, and it also seems that the WPS-2760 didn't make its debut until much later on in the 2700 series timeline. Here is an excerpt from an old brochure that Whelen put out sometime in the '80s that shows the then-current 2700 models, which you'll notice not only includes the WPS-2790 model but does not list the WPS-2760 as a production model at that time.

Is this uploaded anywhere? It'd help the Wiki effort greatly.

I've confirmed it is a 2790. Here is a photo:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DJXtcJdqt5hS1VKs7

I know I'm very late, but those who don't know if it's still up and active, as of March 2025, it remains, although they've been EXTREMELY picky when it comes to testing...