The Siren Board

Spawning off of the thread about the 1959 electronic speakers, I'm just somewhat curious how far back electronic outdoor warning sirens date back. Is the WS-1000 or 2000 models from Whelen the earliest? I'd like to find out as much information for early electronic sirens as I can. A sudden interest just sparked.

I wasn't sure whether to research earlier board topics because I don't think we as a group have ever discussed electronic sirens prior to the WS series.

I remember reading about an electronic siren installed in the carillon tower of Texas A&M (I think) in the 1940's which used a single speaker of enormous proportions and some kind of electronic driver circuit. The speaker may still be there.

I remember a thread a few years ago about a speaker array that Altec produced. I think it was the first mass produced civil defense speaker/siren. Someone had several pictures including one of a speaker array next to an elementary school and a couple pictures of the controls. I can't remember exactly what city they were installed in but it was somewhere down south like Birmingham or something. Someone also described the siren sounding similar to a Carters dual head siren.

I recall an advert for a late 60s/extreme early 70s for one made by FyrFtr (only about 95% sure, so I could be wrong) It looked like four rectangular PA horns on a pole one in each direction.

I wish I could remember where I saw the ad, it wasn't on this board, I know that. I think it was on a siren picture and ad montage on youtube.

jkvernon wrote:I remember a thread a few years ago about a speaker array that Altec produced.

Altec Lansing indeed did make compression horn speakers, both for high-fidelity (I'm trying to obtain a pair from my school) and for siren applications.

Some of them overlapped and were used for high-fidelity audio systems, indoor paging, and outdoor warning.

weasel2htm wrote:I recall an advert for a late 60s/extreme early 70s for one made by FyrFtr (only about 95% sure, so I could be wrong) It looked like four rectangular PA horns on a pole one in each direction.

I wish I could remember where I saw the ad, it wasn't on this board, I know that. I think it was on a siren picture and ad montage on youtube.

Yea, does anybody have a pic of this ad? I remember the controller was basically a desk you literally sat at and you had to flip several switches just to get it to sound the alert signal. Very crude technology.

Well, anything before transistors were in wide circulation would have required a lot more maintenance, warm-up time for the tubes, etc. It would have been a bear to manage.

Here is something interesting:

Thaniks, soccerdude, what can you tell us about it? It looks like some early form of ATI in a steeple or something similar, although those speakers are used by other customers than ATI. Was it a siren, or one of those hokey sounding chime things that played "The Old Rugged Cross" once in a while?

Jim_Ferer wrote:Thaniks, soccerdude, what can you tell us about it? It looks like some early form of ATI in a steeple or something similar, although those speakers are used by other customers than ATI. Was it a siren, or one of those hokey sounding chime things that played "The Old Rugged Cross" once in a while?

I actually found this on the internet by simply searching for "Old Sirens" in Google Image Search, I should have stated that in my post, sorry about that. On the website that I found it on, the label under the image was "Old Air Raid Siren inside of a bell tower". It was not from here in the US.

To me it looks like a bunch of early underhood-mounted police siren speakers. I have no clue who made it. I wish the guy would have taken more pictures of it, but the site I found it on was pointed more towards ancient history and had more scenic pictures than anything else.