The Siren Board

I heard in a thread that this is the first electronic siren, does anybody have a picture?

I'm not so sure that it was the first electronic siren. There was a system installed in the campanile of the University of Texas at Austin that used a gigantic speaker, and it was made during WWII.

http://www.utexas.edu/tours/mainbuildin ... rraid.html

There was also that "Fyr-Fytr" made electronic siren made in the 50's that may predate the WS1000. I used to have some old lit on it....Adam may have it now, I don't know.

Before I read about this I thought the first electronic sirens were the Altec Giant Voice systems.

Does anybody know what it looks like?

http://www.geocities.com/brandonssirens ... system.htm
Giant Voice, developed by Altec, was the first widely used electronic outdoor warning system which was introduced in 1959. It was mainly used in military installations and some setups still exist.

AllSafe wrote:http://www.geocities.com/brandonssirens ... system.htm
Giant Voice, developed by Altec, was the first widely used electronic outdoor warning system which was introduced in 1959. It was mainly used in military installations and some setups still exist.

Wait did Altec produce those just for military or not.The reason I asked is because at our fairgrounds sits a setup exactly like that with words that say Altec I believe (I haven't gone back after I got my glasses).

Starting in 1972, Whelen did manufacture a WS-1000 series siren. I believe this unit only had four speakers, that pointed in each cardinal direction. This siren was upgraded and eventually replaced by the WS-2000 series, which included up to 16 speakers in late 1978.

The city of Ann Arbor, Michigan implemented 42 WS-2000-16 units in 1979-1980. Eventually, due to the high cost of maintenance, and unreliability of these sirens after 15 years, they were replaced by a series of Federal 2001DC units. However, the nearby University of Michigan still uses Whelen 2700s for their primary campus warning system.

There is a Whelen 1000 series siren in Tremont, Pa... it is up on a hill behind a church. Many, many years ago there was a recording of the two sirens in the town of Tremont (the other siren is a Federal 5T) going off together for a fire call. The strange thing about it is, it is run off of a Federal AR (or AT) timer which is sort of different. If I get back up to Tremont I will take pictures of it and the control box/amplifier box.

Dave

http://www.jmarcoz.com/sirens/kennesaw_ga.jpg

I thought there had been agreement some time ago that that picture was of a Whelen WS-1000. I could be wrong, though.