The Siren Board

SoundMaster 391 wrote:Why in the world are those RCM's open?! Is that just because of vandalism?

It was probably so they could disable them to any degree they could. Lucketts VFD's allertor had its control boxes ripped from it, leaving the siren.

Here's a little something for grins, here is how the Wheaton VFD Tbolt looked in the 70s:

All of the 'Bolts and Allertors from DC's system have/had Yagi antennas on their poles. What were those antennas used for? For the ones at fire stations such as Philomont and Lucketts, do you think the antennas were used for receiving fire calls or civil defense?

Allenorgan42099 wrote:All of the 'Bolts and Allertors from DC's system have/had Yagi antennas on their poles. What were those antennas used for? For the ones at fire stations such as Philomont and Lucketts, do you think the antennas were used for receiving fire calls or civil defense?

The yagi antennas were used for receiving the Compulert radio signal from the control center telling the sirens to start or stop so basically the wire from the yagi goes to the Compulert box and then to the RCM panel.

Firepro1120 wrote:

Allenorgan42099 wrote:All of the 'Bolts and Allertors from DC's system have/had Yagi antennas on their poles. What were those antennas used for? For the ones at fire stations such as Philomont and Lucketts, do you think the antennas were used for receiving fire calls or civil defense?

The yagi antennas were used for receiving the Compulert radio signal from the control center telling the sirens to start or stop so basically the wire from the yagi goes to the Compulert box and then to the RCM panel.

I see. Do you think those yagis were used for fire calls or civil defense regarding CD sirens at fire stations?

Allenorgan42099 wrote:

Firepro1120 wrote:

Allenorgan42099 wrote:All of the 'Bolts and Allertors from DC's system have/had Yagi antennas on their poles. What were those antennas used for? For the ones at fire stations such as Philomont and Lucketts, do you think the antennas were used for receiving fire calls or civil defense?

The yagi antennas were used for receiving the Compulert radio signal from the control center telling the sirens to start or stop so basically the wire from the yagi goes to the Compulert box and then to the RCM panel.

I see. Do you think those yagis were used for fire calls or civil defense regarding CD sirens at fire stations?

They were for the CD activation, pretty sure the fire call system was seperate.

I see. Do you think those yagis were used for fire calls or civil defense regarding CD sirens at fire stations?[/quote]
They were for the CD activation, pretty sure the fire call system was seperate.[/quote]

I thought so. But the Allertor my videos (Philomont) is not manually activated for fire calls. It is activated by a tone. I guess it's not from the yagi though.

Allenorgan42099 wrote:

Firepro1120 wrote:

Allenorgan42099 wrote:All of the 'Bolts and Allertors from DC's system have/had Yagi antennas on their poles. What were those antennas used for? For the ones at fire stations such as Philomont and Lucketts, do you think the antennas were used for receiving fire calls or civil defense?

The yagi antennas were used for receiving the Compulert radio signal from the control center telling the sirens to start or stop so basically the wire from the yagi goes to the Compulert box and then to the RCM panel.

I see. Do you think those yagis were used for fire calls or civil defense regarding CD sirens at fire stations?

Oh my bad. I didn't realize you mean't that.

sp4nk wrote:Washington DC currently has no siren system. I believe it was mentioned in the previous board that it once had a civil defense system consisting of Thunderbolts. This system was dismantled during the early 90's.

Sounds like once Gorbachev Resigned and the USSR fell, they felt maintaining a system was pointless and a waste of money.

AST128_RyanK wrote:

sp4nk wrote:Washington DC currently has no siren system. I believe it was mentioned in the previous board that it once had a civil defense system consisting of Thunderbolts. This system was dismantled during the early 90's.

Sounds like once Gorbachev Resigned and the USSR fell, they felt maintaining a system was pointless and a waste of money.

Yeah, seems like the main reason why many systems were dismantled in the 1990s.

Sorry for the bump.

I was digging through some old photos of Arlington, VA and came across this photo in which a Thunderbolt is clearly visible in the top right corner. It was taken in 1988.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kinorama/ ... 355857077/

This location is visible in the 2007 street view at 1097 N Garfield St (the building that the siren is on still exists but is now surrounded by high rises). The siren appears to have been long since removed.

The only other DC siren location in Arlington that I know of is at 4444 N Old Glebe Rd. It is still standing and is listed on the VA siren map. I was wondering if anybody knew of any other Arlington locations besides these two.

Thanks.