Brendan Ahern wrote:30 years is about the useful life on a warning system. Sure, you may get longer, but 30 years is acceptable. Sounds like those Altecs were up a lot longer than they should have been. They were really the original electronic sirens. I will say, electronic sirens have come a long way. I still prefer mechanical, but there is nothing wrong with most electronic systems today. ATI is just an inferior product. The quality is low to begin with. So comparing Whelen to ATI isn't really fair.
I agree Brendan, that Whelen is better quality that ATI and there is nothing wrong with most Electronic Systems today. But you can't live for today. You have to plan for the future. What might work fine today and parts are readily available is not a guarantee 20 plus years down the road. The Altec system started having issues within 10 years of service. Two of the site locations were so bad that they had to replace them with Federal Model 2T's in the late 1970's. The entire Altec Systems were susceptible to constant lightning strikes. Huntsville did purchase two Federal Electronic Speaker Modulator 1004s back in the early to mid 1990's, when they bought most of the Federal 2001's. Both of these Modulator 1004's were also hit by lightning within 5 years and completely fried. It could be that our area is more prone to lightning strikes and just can't handle the Outdoor Electronic Speaker Systems.
I completely understand, that 30 years is a good life span for Warning Systems. A 30 year old Mechanical Siren, that only has a typical motor and chopper inside a housing, is far easier to fix and find replacement parts than a 30 year old electronic speaker and its voice driver that is no longer being manufactured. All of us have seen 50 plus year old Mechanical Sirens that are still being used today, but no one has ever shown an Electronic one that's even 30 years old still being used today. Even cars today are harder to work on with all the electronics on them than the cars that were made 40 years ago that were more mechanical. With many cities and towns across the U.S. on tight budgets already, as an EMA officer it's you duty to think ahead into the future and spend what little money you get for Warning Systems wisely. 30 years down the road the city leaders might say no to replacing your Warning System. You better have a Warning System that you can sustain another 20 years if needed, until new leadership can be elected into office. Just look at many places still using the old worn out Thunderbolts. Most of these Thunderbolts should have been replaced 20 years ago. They keep them going, because there is no money budgeted for a complete replacement. Luckily, these old Thunderbolts are Mechanical units that can be broken down and rebuilt, within reason. If these were Electronic units, it would be almost impossible and very expensive to find parts to keep them going. If you could not keep them going, the city leaders would most likely abandon the Outdoor Warning System and tell everybody to just rely on the Alert Weather Radios only. We have seen this happen too many times in the news. We all know that Alert Weather Radios and the Outdoor Warning Systems both play an important roll in warning people of danger. There has been several times in the past when the Alert Weather Radios failed to sound a Tornado Warning, because lightning hit the transmitter tower and took it off the air. There has also been times when some of the Outdoor Warning Systems failed to sound too. Nothing is fool proof. To tell people to just rely on the Alert Weather Radios only, is no different than telling them to just rely on the Outdoor Sirens. Never put all your eggs in one basket. The more warning devices you have the greater public warning ability you have. I personally think Outdoor Sirens, Alert Weather Radios, Reverse 911, and Email Alerts should all work together. If one of these should fail when called upon, you still have the other three getting the warning out to the public.
I hope you understand that I have nothing against Electronic Systems as long as you live in an area where your city or town leaders don't mind spending the money to keep them up and have no problem replacing them every 20 years. Unfortunately, most city and town leaders aren't like that.
