The Siren Board

Here is a small craft I built up recently. It is a scale model of the original ACA Hurricane 130.

"Brief History."

The square horn Hurricane 130 was designed by Jim Biersach and introduced at the 1968 Civil Defense convention. The convention was held at the old Sheraton Hotel in Milwaukee, WI. While the prototype was 10-12 port, production models were 8-12 or 8-10 port. Despite much clamor it did not actually produce 130 decibels at 100 feet. Ratings recorded in Rolling Meadows, IL only gave 124 decibels at best. So the Hurricane was redesigned in 1973 to use a round horn and other improvements. The Hurricane 130 "MKII" gave the full 130 decibels, however it was discontinued in 1981 and replaced with the Penetrator 50.
The square horn Hurricanes ended up in the suburbs of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. I don't think any are still in service.

"Model Building."

An old manual, brochure cover, and photos of Luke Thomas' siren were used as pictorial guides.
Searching around revealed an online scale converter which was used to calculate the actual model size.
The siren is mostly made out of 120 gram paper, glued with Elmer's Glue-All. The standpipe was a scrap metal rod, trimmed to fit.
A wood pole was used as a mount - it was taken from an old Ratcliffe STH-10 which disappeared years ago. Only the pole and a control box were left.

The model was painted with acrylic paint. I decided to paint it bright firehouse red - it turned out nice and sharp.
Finer details were painted with enamel mixes or colored in with a Sharpie marker.

Blower platform and maintenance basket were added. The original Hurricane 130 was definitely a strange beast.

Finally, the siren was mounted on a wood block. A hole was drilled in to secure the pole. I tinted the base ice blue - a cold day in the old 'burbs.
I'm quite pleased with how it all turned out. While I've built up the Ratcliffe kits before, this was the first time I did a custom siren in 1/87 scale. The model is currently displayed on one of my work tables.

To give some perspective of size, the horn and rotator are about an inch long.

Wow that looks great. Thanks for the history of the Hurricane. Always wanted to hear one of those.

Wow, remarkable craftsmanship! Out of curiosity, do you know what towns ended up receiving Hurricane 130s? The ones I know of are Centralia, Illinois, and allegedly Baxter, Minnesota, but that's about it.

Wow, that's pretty neat! I've always wanted to make models like that, but seem to lack the skills to do so.

Very nice model!

not trying to be critical, but didn't the older Hurricanes have a big bulge attached to the chopper tube for the rotator?

Thanks for the comments. In regards to square-horn Hurricane locations, here is what I can confirm:

Centralia, IL: Two were installed in 1973, one on a multi-level parking garage building and the other in a radio tower. While the siren mounted on the parking garage disappeared ages ago, Luke Thomas owns the siren that was located in the radio tower.

Rolling Meadows, IL: They had at least three Hurricanes installed in 1971, one of which was ordered with three signals. The city was going to get a grant to pay off half the siren cost if the sirens gave 130 decibels. These sirens only gave 124 decibels on testing which lead to the city filing a suit against ACA by 1974. The Hurricanes were replaced at some point with newer sirens.

Baxter, MN: This Hurricane was located near the intersection of Highways 371 and 210. It was removed in late 2007 and replaced with a 2001-130. News of its replacement did not reach the forum until long after it was gone.

Plymouth, MN: One was placed along I-694 - this siren was removed in 1990, and replaced with a 2001-DC.

Milwaukee, WI: All Hurricane 130s were manufactured here.
At least one was installed within the city or surrounding 'burbs at some point, replaced or supplemented by round horned Hurricane 130 MKIIs later on.

The original Hurricane 130 used a small tube-shaped rotator. At some point it was changed to use a larger tub shaped shroud for ease of access - only about 50 square horn Hurricanes were made and some of these were updated to use the round horn head as a sort of deal ACA offered.

Here is the ACA brochure showing the prototype Hurricane alongside other sirens. Although it's been posted before, here's some more information.
The brochure was published in 1968 to promote ACA's new lineup of sirens. They are actual factory photos, cut and arranged into a collage. All of the sirens were shown off at the 1968 CD convention in Milwaukee, WI. There were many differences between the actual production models and what was shown here, largely to accommodate building costs for mass production. The prototypes were simply sold off and installed like the regular production sirens - none of them were retained for preservation.

SuperBanshee wrote:Thanks for the comments. In regards to square-horn Hurricane locations, here is what I can confirm:

Centralia, IL: Two were installed in 1973, one on a multi-level parking garage building and the other in a radio tower. While the siren mounted on the parking garage disappeared ages ago, Luke Thomas owns the siren that was located in the radio tower.

Rolling Meadows, IL: They had at least three Hurricanes installed in 1971, one of which was ordered with three signals. The city was going to get a grant to pay off half the siren cost if the sirens gave 130 decibels. These sirens only gave 124 decibels on testing which lead to the city filing a suit against ACA by 1974. The Hurricanes were replaced at some point with newer sirens.

Baxter, MN: This Hurricane was located near the intersection of Highways 371 and 210. It was removed in late 2007 and replaced with a 2001-130. News of its replacement did not reach the forum until long after it was gone.

Plymouth, MN: One was placed along I-694 - this siren was removed in 1990, and replaced with a 2001-DC.

Milwaukee, WI: All Hurricane 130s were manufactured here.
At least one was installed within the city or surrounding 'burbs at some point, replaced or supplemented by round horned Hurricane 130 MKIIs later on.

The original Hurricane 130 used a small tube-shaped rotator. At some point it was changed to use a larger tub shaped shroud for ease of access - only about 50 square horn Hurricanes were made and some of these were updated to use the round horn head as a sort of deal ACA offered.

Here is the ACA brochure showing the prototype Hurricane alongside other sirens. Although it's been posted before, here's some more information.
The brochure was published in 1968 to promote ACA's new lineup of sirens. They are actual factory photos, cut and arranged into a collage. All of the sirens were shown off at the 1968 CD convention in Milwaukee, WI. There were many differences between the actual production models and what was shown here, largely to accommodate building costs for mass production. The prototypes were simply sold off and installed like the regular production sirens - none of them were retained for preservation.

ACAOldBrochure.jpg

Do you know if any of the prototypes still exists?

There used to be photos showing the Screamer 105 in Pennsylvania. The picture links don't work anymore but here is the thread.
The Screamer was removed and, amid what's detailed in the thread, it appears to have been scrapped.

https://airraidsirens.com/forums/viewto ... f=2&t=1868

Well I'll be danged, sorry for the misinterpretation. I totally forgot about that old ad and I thought the Hurricane Luke acquired was the original model. That aside, still a nice Model!

SuperBanshee wrote:Thanks for the comments. In regards to square-horn Hurricane locations, here is what I can confirm:

Centralia, IL: Two were installed in 1973, one on a multi-level parking garage building and the other in a radio tower. While the siren mounted on the parking garage disappeared ages ago, Luke Thomas owns the siren that was located in the radio tower.

And I have tried like hell to find that other siren but I could not find anything. I talked to the old CD director, Jim Biersach, and annoyed the public officials so much that they answered with "Hello, Luke" whenever I called. I drove through just about every street on this town and only found two slightly similar buildings that matched the description I was given. One was torn down in 2006, and another is now a Rent-A-Center. I say with a heavy heart that the building is gone, a long with the other hurricane.