Westinghouse sirens?

[Daniel]

You have all seen this video before. This is the "paint can" siren seen in various locations around Oregon. Most have a flat top but this has a cone. People have speculated that it is a Sterling, or perhaps a HOR, but a comment made today suggests that it is a Westinghouse siren. I took a photo of Imbler's removed siren which had no manufacturer's label except a Westinghouse motor. Many sirens used Westinghouse motors, but did Westinghouse, like GE, build their own sirens at one time?

http://youtu.be/Oytx9-Fd3G8

If you're in Oregon, these are found in John Day, Canyonville, Imbler (removed), Rickreall, Gardner, Camas Valley, Tangent (with homemade horns), and Brownsville.

[kx250rider]

I have no knowledge on that, but I do know that at times, Westinghouse and GE (and RCA and Brunswick and many other major electric & electronic mfrs), were bought & sold amongst each other. Brunswick (the same company who makes the bowling alley machinery and made radios in the 1920s), made a siren if I recall. And somewhere entwined in the mix, was Harley-Davidson and AMF Sporting goods. That could be a clue. My guess is that if Westinghouse looked deep in their file cabinets, they found a license and patent for a siren to build on demand...

Charles

[Daniel]

Thanks. I had no idea that Brunswick built sirens at one time. It is difficult to trace origins when these companies became interchangeable. War production was another factor. For example, the Wicks Organ Company, which had produced pipe organs since the late 1800's, converted their factory to build aircraft engines during WWII, then resumed building organs after the war, sometimes using surplus shell casings to make pipes (their organs are not known for their quality).

[Ziginox]

Fun fact, Brunswick also owns Bayliner (plus a few other hull companies) and Mercury Marine. I also recently saw an old victrola-style record player built into a console that was made by Brunswick, the record went in the top like any other console and the projector was fitted underneath the turntable, which I can't say I've ever seen before.

[kx250rider]

Fun fact, Brunswick also owns Bayliner (plus a few other hull companies) and Mercury Marine. I also recently saw an old victrola-style record player built into a console that was made by Brunswick, the record went in the top like any other console and the projector was fitted underneath the turntable, which I can't say I've ever seen before.

That was when RCA was in a feud with another company; either GE or Westinghouse, over the rights to the Victor Talking Machine patents. I forget the details that I read on that, but for legal reasons, the lineup of radio/victrola units for a year or so, had the Brunswick name. It was actually an RCA Radiola 18 chassis with a Victor Electrola crystal-pickup type phonograph.

There are SO MANY blurry historical corporate mergers and split-offs, reunions and fights, that nobody can keep up. David Sarnoff of RCA, was a mafia figurehead, and he took what he wanted from any company he wanted to take it from, but sometimes it took him awhile if the other company was as big as GE or Westinghouse. Not to get off-topic too far, but I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere, there is still a royalty being paid to an RCA entity for all CD sirens, as somehow Sarnoff got his paws into just about every patent licensing right on Earth, by illicitly involving RCA somehow in the development of everything invented by other people.


Charles