The Siren Board

I need some help with sirens. I am new to the community and I don't know too much about sirens and I want to get one. I am not sure the supplies needed and where is a good place to get a siren. I want to get a Federal Signal type.

Full-Size Air Raid Sirens can be very expensive, not to mention large, bulky, and heavy. They often don't go for sale for anything less than $1,000 nowadays. There are a lot of different types and variants of sirens.

Smaller sirens will pop up on Ebay frequently. Search Ebay for "Federal Siren" and your results will be almost completely Federal products. Smaller sirens can range from $2,000 for a new Federal Q (common firetruck siren), to $9.99 for a siren that is brand new, but made in China and won't do steady for very long until it burns up. These Chinese sirens are small and Red, or maybe gray. Don't buy them.

Ebay, Craigslist, and the For Sale section of the forum are places to look for sirens that may be for sale. As for supplies, knowing how to wire a plug to two wires correctly may help, and for larger sirens (like the Federal Model 5, for example) will probably need a Single Phase to Three Phase converter.

If you visit fire stations, city halls, or maintenance yards, especially in smaller communities, you might see a pole where a siren was once mounted, or perhaps a newer siren attached to a bracket obviously designed for a different type of siren. Ask someone and you will often find an old siren sitting behind the station or in storage. If you are willing to rebuild a siren with a shot motor, you can often get one for next to nothing. The only thing I would advise is to avoid any sirens with cracked or broken rotors or stators.