The Siren Board

eaglecomm wrote:Seems like ATI always submits a lower bid than other manufacturers. Take Overland Park, KS for instance-back in 2004 the city wanted to continue upgrades on their warning siren system. Prior to that, Federal/Blue Valley Public Safety had already replaced the city's Thunderbolts, beams, 2T22's with 2001's.

In 04 when they wanted to add 4 additional sirens, OPKS got two bids: one from Federal/BVPS at the price of $75,015.20, the other ATI at $71, 650. As some of you are well aware, Federal has their own (proprietary) encoding and transmitting "tones" for activation of the newer siren equipment. Naturally OPKS rejected ATI's bid because their equipment wouldn't be compatible with the existing system. The ATI rep got his panties in a bunch and tried disputing the fact that Federal's encoding method was proprietary, and swore up and down his equipment would work with the existing setup. Sounded like a rather pathetic, desparate sales attempt if you ask me, but it's fairly typical of most ATI reps.

I know one thing for sure, OP made a smart move by keeping the Federal bid-otherwise they would have been screwed, and ended up paying for 2 different systems.

Sources:
http://www.opfd.com/_Assets/agendas/ps/ ... /ACT-3.PDF
OPKS Bid Tabulation from 2004

http://www.opkansas.org/_Assets/agendas ... CT-7-1.PDF
OPKS City Council Minutes

StonedChipmunk wrote:Not surprising, a tornado tone system. It's a shame they went for ATI, being the closest working sirens to me (excluding my campus's once-used Mod). Coulda recorded some sirens!

Whelen Rules wrote:Nashville isn't the closest working siren system to you in Chattanooga. Lots of Counties and Cities throughout Middle Tennessee have siren systems including us here in Tullahoma off I-24, we are only 1 1/2 hours from Chattanooga. I don't know of any communities in East TN but Middle and West Tennessee have a variety.