The Siren Board

hello everyone i found this board by searching for air raid sirens. little about myself

my name is joe, im 17 , honors high school student, going into engineering,(mechanical most likely). i own an 1985 mercedes benz 300D with 261k on it.

reason i joined was so i too could own an air raid siren of some form, i rember when i used to live in wolcott connecticut i was 8 years old playing in the snow(yea snow i miss it) and i hear the air raid siren the fire department had. i dont rember the model name or anything but i got to push the button to it. they would test it once a month and when it would scream i would sit there and just listen for the warble.. i loved it spooling up and down.

i am going to be reciving a vintage 1940's firetruck growler type siren from a friend, i guess that will start my collection. i think it will be good for the hurricane season to warn the neighborhood of impeding doom.

i look forward to someday owning a siren of my own, if i posted this in the wrong place please move it to where it belongs.. thanks

Welcome to the board.

As Peter said, Welcome.

Hi.

Welcome. Spend some time browsing the different sections of this board, the rest of Adam's site, and definitely Eric Green's site, http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/. That way you'll be able to ask good questions.

A lot of us got into sirens because of childhood experiences. I'm not as much of a fan as a lot of people here, but I got into reading siren boards as a sort of therapy for a major phobia for CD sirens, especially Thunderbolts. I'm 56 and grew up in the Cold War, when the sirens could have told you you had half an hour to live.

There aren't really "air raid" sirens any more, at least here in the U.S., but the same sirens are used for tornado and flood warnings, tsunamis, things like that.

Getting into sirens is one way to get into your mechanical and electrical engineering. Lots of people here own sirens and have restored them. (some of them to better than new, I bet).

Enjoy yourself!

Welcome. Getting a federal model Q siren?

Welcome. I live in CT and have been planning a trip to Wolcott to hear their sirens especially the 2 restored SD-10s they either are getting or just got. If you haven't already seen it here'sa topic on them
http://www.airraidsirens.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=310

Please allow me to jump on the band wagon. I joined the board and started asking questions without introducing myself. My name's Matt, I'm a 23 year old firefighter and siren fanatic. Like I said on another post I was facinated by the two thunderbolts that were at my hometown fire department. One was a 1000 or 1000T, and the other was a 1003, that was used as the volunteer siren. They dissapeared in '91 when they were taken down when the station was remodeled, and I've been trying to locate one just to hear that Hi-Lo wail again. But my ultimate goal is to aquire one and re-condition it. So sorry I didn't do this earlier, and I look forward to talking with you guys.

Thedon wrote:i own an 1985 mercedes benz 300D with 261k on it.

Welcome! And a SPECIAL welcome as a fellow Diesel owner (I have Toyota Diesels)... Your reasons for being fascinated with sirens are similar to what got me to this board and this hobby... Here in Los Angeles, they tested the sirens every last Friday of the month at noon when I was in school. In addition to getting a thrill out of listening, especially the spool-down, hearing the wail of the siren meant that it was only a couple hours 'til the weekend

Charles

Welcome to our weird little community.

I grew up in a town which used only air horns for an alarm, and hadn't heard my first siren (a Federal Model 5) until I was about eleven years old. Now I live in a state where the only sirens still in existence are operated by small town fire departments. The largest town with a regularly-tested siren is Pendleton (population 15,000) which has a single SD-10. I am a musician and am particularly interested in the timbral qualities of outdoor warning devices. A man in Sweden built a sort of organ out of around 20 air horns (Kockums, or course) which can be heard for miles, and along with someday planning to build a full carillon out of tuned welding tanks, I aspire to this kind of greatness. Our state has plenty of places where nobody can hear you!

By the way, my friend wants to sell me a 1984 380 SE (gasoline engine) with 250k on it. Know anything unusual about this model, other than being underpowered? I know that it has just about enough space under the hood to fit my Federal Model 28 as well as an Italian Martinshorn-type police siren that I removed from my old Audi 200T.