How do we trigger a firehouse 2t22 for a tornado warning?

[Robert Gift]

If no one is present at the fire station, how can the siren be triggered?

West of us, the City of Aurora, Colorado, has 41 Whelen electronic sirens distributed through the city.

Do we obtain a radio receiver to intercept their Whelen signal?
How do we avoid an alarm when they send signals for silent tests?

Thank you,

[SirenMadness]

Silent tests are made to comprehend a signal that won't work on your 2T22. You must have decoding software made to correlate the signals inputted into your 2T22, to the signals that your 2T22 gives out.

[Robert Gift]

I need to differentiate between a test signal and real signal so that a test signal sent to their Whelen sirens will not set off our 2t22.
I can design and fabricate a circuit to initiate a 5-minute cycle for the 2t22 once a real alert is sent by Aurora to their siren nearest us. -If that siren to our southwest is operated, ours should sound unless one here can verify there is no threat and disallow activation of the 2t22.

[SirenMadness]

Activating the siren manually would be the simplest idea.

[Justin]

The best option would be to call up Whelen and ask for a decoder set for the one used in the current system, and if it's possible to set the decoder to ignore any commands that are inherently incompatible with the 2T22.

Then call the municipality to let them know your wiring your 2T22 into their system remotely. That way they can take into account any additional sirens in the system when upgrading.

Or, instead of ignoring activation tones like live-voice, just set the siren off.

-Edit-
You'll have to be 110% positive that you can actually receive the activation tones from the municipality.
This should be as simple as tuning a scanner (which should be plentiful there ) to the frequencies used and see how clear they come through.

If there's a slight amount of distortion, consider a high-gain antenna.

[JasonC]

Those receivers start out at $1500 and climb quickly. Whelen systems almost never use simple two-tone or even DTMF paging.

The cheapest way would probably be to buy a small base radio, or even a MINITOR pager and the base station with relay. (in fact, if the base radio at your station has a relay, with room for another set of decoded tones, then your halfway there!) Program the frequency and tones in (you will have to get your 911 dispatch center to encode a set of tones for your siren, or use the ones for any other sirens in the area). Then you'll have to get a timer, and hook it up to the radio decoder, and you should be all set.

Another option would be to set the siren off via telephone...not by leased lines, but by actually calling up your siren, and having a receiver receive the call and triggering your siren.

[Robert Gift]

Activating the siren manually would be the simplest idea.

The whole point is no one may be present.
We could be out on a fire call.
Also, we try to have staffing, but there can be Saturdays and Sundays when no one is here.
If a trained Severe Weather Spotter is present, s/he could overide Aurora's activation of the 2t22 if it can be determined there is no threat to us.
Likewise, anyone could activate the 2t22 if they see something coming though a warning has not been issued by Aurora or the NWS.
We have vacant farmland west of the station which allows excellent view.
Last year, Aurora activated ALL their sirens, though the funnel cloud was south, not even in the City, and the north half of the city was clear and sunny.
Such false alarms diminish credibility of warnings.

[Robert Gift]

Thanks, Justin and Jason.
We may have to buy a Whelen receiver. I hate to pay Whelen $1.5 k for a receiver.
I anticipate good signal strength. Aurora's easternmost siren is not too far away. In this flatland, signals propogate well.
I have considered a telephone line, but a wrong number could set off the siren. Same with a pager.
As a child, my friends and I set off an outdoor telephone buzzer when I guessed the business's line which sounded the buzzer. We set it off at midnight.
Bad boys, bad boys, Who you gonna call...

[JasonC]

Forgot to add this to my last post. You could get your 911 dispatch to page you guys out for a tornado warning. Then, one of the members could activate the siren either by going to the station (not such a good idea) or by using a phone to "call" the siren to trigger it (better idea).

[Robert Gift]

Yes. Already thought of that. Thank you.
But everyone is so far away from the station, we could be too late.
Also those like me coming from the west may be entering the storm to get to the station.
When you call a siren, does the answering system not require a code to authenticate the call so it will not activate from a wrong number?
Maybe I could hook up an answering machine playback to trigger the siren. You must enter a secret code to put it in playback mode!