Whelen and their speaker driver problems

[Alasiren1977]

We only run our sirens for five continuous minutes for tornado warnings then they shut off not to be sounded again. The only time I ever heard them go off twice for the same storm was when they had issued a severe thunderstorm warning then up-graded to a tornado warning. It seems unnecessary to run a siren for the duration of the warning. Media outlets tell you when the warning expires.

Well this topic is a double edge sword for many reasons! A lot of people think that you should run the sirens for the duration of the warning because when they only go off for only 3 minutes and then shut down, people become complacent and tend to think the tornado is over with. On the other hand people should be smart enough to know to listen to the media outlets to check on the status of the storm. My personal belief is let the sirens run for 3 minutes, shut down,( if you have electronic sirens then do the voice announcement for 1 minute) If the conditions have worsened or their is a confirmed tornado then resound them again for three minutes, and repeat this cycle. Since none of the siren vendors are saying what is an acceptable cool down period, i would think 1-3 minutes would be plenty of time.

[Alasiren1977]

By the way does anyone happen to know how much one of those 400 watts speaker drivers cost. They sure seemed to have a big pile of them when the newscaster picked that one up.

[SirenMadness]

The tests conducted by that newscaster are not precise, since there was wind, and other atmospheric conditions that somewhat deteriorated the reading.

Also, I don't necessarily think that the discontinuous air horn signal would justify shorter cool-down periods, because the heat will only dissipate to a very small extent between each short blast, so the heat will still build up.

[coyoteunknown]

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/broke ... 3993965109

Another video. This one states two sirens need to be completely replaced because they were struck by lightning. They said it costs between $600 to $800 to replace "these". He doesn't exactly say what "these" are, but I'm sure he's not saying it'd cost $600 to $800 to entirely replace a $20,000 siren. So maybe it's $600 to $800 to replace each speaker? They also stated that they were recommended to give the sirens 5 to 10 minutes to cool down after a 3 minute operation.

I wish I could have one of those burnt out Whelen's, if they're going to entirely replace some of them.

[SirenMadness]

That's the beauty of some speaker sirens: if one driver fails, there are the others to make the siren only partially operational.

That issue is also the reason that no public warning siren has just one driver.

[AllSafe]

That issue is also the reason that no public warning siren has just one driver.

Except for the Hornet; it only has one 400W driver.

[SirenMadness]

Oh yeah, sorry. I wouldn't want to see the driver on that thing fail!

[Alasiren1977]

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/broke ... 3993965109

Another video. This one states two sirens need to be completely replaced because they were struck by lightning. They said it costs between $600 to $800 to replace "these". He doesn't exactly say what "these" are, but I'm sure he's not saying it'd cost $600 to $800 to entirely replace a $20,000 siren. So maybe it's $600 to $800 to replace each speaker? They also stated that they were recommended to give the sirens 5 to 10 minutes to cool down after a 3 minute operation.

I wish I could have one of those burnt out Whelen's, if they're going to entirely replace some of them.

Ya i think he was talking about it costing $600-$800 per siren replaced. Wow he is waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy off with that figure. You know it really isnt their fault though, cause Whelen does not tell you that there is a cool off period, I would be contacting Whelen and speaking to someone about incorrect data or there lack of, and getting some free Speaker Drivers. They really need to publish that.

[AllAmericanFE]

I was told that it cost about 400-500 for each speaker driver.