Fire whistle

[58006]

Originally Posted by SteveC0625

Ah, another person that gets it! Thank you!

Yes, born and raised within the Blue Line and live within 5 miles of it now.

The volunteer fire department up here still uses a siren. It cycles 4 or 5 times and shuts down so it's not terribly annoying during sleep time. Not only does it let folks know that there is an alarm, but it's also a subtle reminder that the fire service here is a volunteer one and that good men and women get up and respond 24/7 when called.

Very true indeed.

#WWFD 12/24/2012 RIP, Chip and Tomasz.

Absolutely!

[SteveC0625]

#WWFD 12/24/2012

And a reminder to myself that I needed to change my avatar.

One more point about the fire sirens...

Most of them are now triggered by tones and decoders, same as our pagers. But at one time, not so terribly long ago, a person had to reach out and physically flip a switch or push a button to set off the alarm.

When I was a kid in Brockport, they had a fire horn. By sounding various numbers of blasts of the horn, the firemen could look at a list and see where the fire was, at least by street or other pre-designated location. We still had manual telephones so you could pick up the phone and give the operator a code word and she'd tell you exactly where the fire was. My dad always has us kids call while he got ready to go on the call.

There's a lot of heritage and tradition behind those sirens or horns. I don't want to see them go away.

[Chauffeur6]

Originally Posted by SteveC0625

When I was a kid in Brockport, they had a fire horn. By sounding various numbers of blasts of the horn, the firemen could look at a list and see where the fire was, at least by street or other pre-designated location. We still had manual telephones so you could pick up the phone and give the operator a code word and she'd tell you exactly where the fire was. My dad always has us kids call while he got ready to go on the call.

There's a lot of heritage and tradition behind those sirens or horns. I don't want to see them go away.

Haverstraw and Nyack in Rockland still have their Gamewell box alarm systems. The horns blow out the box # when a box is pulled or transmitted. What's really cool though is that they've adopted a 100+ year old technology to the modern age. Both telegraph systems are tied to a Digitizer box at 44-Control, where they can both receive and transmit boxes. If Box 332 is pulled, the horns blow it out and it's recorded on the punch tape in the firehouses, as well as sending the box # up to 44-Control, where they then sound the tones and dispatch the dept. It works the opposite way as well. If 44-Control gets an automatic alarm or 911 call, they can transmit the appropriate box to the dept so the horns blow.

Not all old technology has to be outdated or extinct. If it ain't broke....

[EJM]

Morristown,NJ had the Gamewell System in place till the early to mid eighties. When we had too many False Alarms at certain boxes,the Fire Chief pulled the box. Eventuality the whole system was put out of service, when the new Chief started.The residents were given cards with all the Box #'s on it to look at when the siren sounded and know the location of the call.

[mike4164]

I will make it simple. The reason why most departments still use the siren is because there are alot of pager failures in areas where the pager wont go off and the FF's will hear the sirens and respond to the firehouse knowing something is going on. Yes tradition does have something to do with it,but I do not think pride plays a major part in it. It comes down to 1 thing, RELIABILITY!!! Short and sweet and simple.As good as modern technology is these days there is still a high rate of failure. Another thing is pagers and radios use radio waves, hint hint. Like I said, a siren can be heard for miles in most areas. For example. I live in Silver lake in orange county and friday Slate Hill was paged out for a job and I heard the fire siren from my house, 6 miles away. Simple, reliable and loud. Can't say it any better.

[902]

ISO requires multiple means of alerting in order to achieve a lower rating (and better insurance level). Having a fire siren augments alerting receivers. If there's a failure of one system, the other system will most probably work as they tend to be independent of each other. That's the most compelling reason I can think of to maintain a siren system. It's usually a reliable low-tech backup.

[gothamite]

The sirens are a means of fostering a sense of community in that when they sound people know that someone in their "community" needs assistance and other (usually unpaid) members of the community stand ready to help, regardless of weather, personal convenience, time of day or night or anything else.

Additionally, the Northeast has been through four major blackouts in the past 47 years or so plus the September 11 events. Most notably during September 11 and Hurricane Sandy, wireless communications were severely affected and people, especially political leadership, should have learned that there always has to be a “Plan B” upon which to fall back. In terms of emergency notification, the tried and true sirens should be part of those overall plans.

[wmetech1]

Almost all of the stations here in northern Westchester county are 100% volunteer, and most still use sirens or horns 24/7 with the 12 noon test. I assume one of the reasons is I live under 20 miles from Indian Point Nuclear Energy plant. I know there are sirens dedicated to the plant in a 10 mile radius, but I'm sure if need be station sirens could be activated as well.

My father always had a more cynical view on the subject, saying that if the firefighters had to wake up at 3 am then so should everyone else (I remind him how they saved our apartment from burning to the ground...)

As others said, the sirens around here are activated by tones, though it still serves as a cue to turn my scanner on as I can usually figure out at the very least what type of call it is, though often the address/location is repeated for town police or from on location chiefs to responding apparatus.

As a sort of side note, my department here just completed a multi million dollar expansion/renovation project. As part of the project the siren was replaced and a large backup generator installed as the station is also the town's emergency coordination center. The funny part is, unlike others suggested, the siren produces too much power draw and IS NOT operational in a power outage, though the county radio system IS. Also, when Westchester underwent their radio system overhaul/trunked system upgrade the system was built to and largely proven to have close to 100% coverage, which includes pagers. So during hurricane Sandy, as long as my scanner was charged, that was the ONLY way to hear dispatches.

My parents have a house in Ulster County as well, and there it's largely the opposite situation; the rural department has 5 members (I'm completely serious) and the siren is activated by tones as well. The radio coverage up there is very spoty, especially since we're at the very edge of the county, so no one has pagers and the siren blows till someone gets to the station and turns it off (there's also a big red button you can press right next to the door to activate it... some guy last summer thought it was the doorbell and "rang" it during a street fair )



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[kb2hpw]

Upstater here too (Center Brunswick, Troy outskirts). Rensselaer county, many stations still use house sirens. I like it, you know something is going on in town. Multiple sirens means something BIG is going on, or mutual aid for something really BIG. Prompts me to turn on scanner, or start listening closer. Very rural topography out here in my neck of the woods, but you can hear other distant stations sirens if you listen carefully. I think it's a good reminder for the general public, that someone is dragging their butt out of bed at 3am to help someone in need, all for FREE. then have to scramble back home to get ready for work, or figure out if they should take a sick day, vac day, or beg thier boss to let them come in a few hours late that day. I think too many of the general public take for granted the services they get, their taxes pay for the gear, training, etc but there is still a volunteer at the end of it all carrying the burden. Let the sirens wail, not a bad thing.

[902]

Originally Posted by gothamite

The sirens are a means of fostering a sense of community in that when they sound people know that someone in their "community" needs assistance and other (usually unpaid) members of the community stand ready to help, regardless of weather, personal convenience, time of day or night or anything else.

Great point! It was a combination of scanners, the fire whistle, and just being nosy that got me interested in joining my fire department when I was old enough to do so. Unfortunately, once the community became more commuters to Manhattan, there were fewer people coming in to sign up than there were calling and demanding service. A lot of people aren't the volunteering type. They were also the ones who complained the most when the sirens went off. Silly stuff, too. One day we made a blooper tape from the logging recorder tapes. "When you set off those sirens, my baby vibrated from one end of the crib to the other! I'm calling the mayor in the morning!" Or, "Your sirens are so shrill they broke my dishes!" *sigh*

[kb4mdz]

It's a point of contention in many places. I grew up in Perrysburg, Ny, about an hour south of Buffalo, and we had both the siren, and the Diaphone for coding the location, into the '70's. I've been away for a long time so I don't know how it is now.

OTOH, where I live now, Wake County, NC, decided about 4 years ago to silence the house sirens at all the fire stations paged by the county. Again, too many complaints from people who've moved here from other areas and landed in subdivisions that sprang up near fire stations that have been there for decades..... Can you tell I don't care much for whiney cry-babies?

I think it's a good idea to keep sirens working partly for a sense of community - let the citizens know that FF's are still out there, and it's another level of alerting backup.

[Confuzzled]

Originally Posted by kb4mdz

Again, too many complaints from people who've moved here from other areas and landed in subdivisions that sprang up near fire stations that have been there for decades.....

Whiner sprawl has ruined many things.

[wmetech1]

Originally Posted by Confuzzled

Whiner sprawl has ruined many things.

You said it


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[mike4164]

Another reason the sirens are still used in some areas is for tornado warnings. As for not using the sirens because a county has complete radio coverage is not an excuse to stop using them. 1 thing to remember,no matter how good radio coverage might be, there is and always will be a high rate of failure in technology in our time. As for NYC having a backup plan,LOL lemme tell you something, I grew up in Brooklyn and worked for FDNY/EMS(NYC*EMS) for 24 years and no matter what they try they will never be properly prepared!!!!!! The powers to be in NYC are so caught up in their own ego's they will let the city collapse before anything is done right!!!!!!! When I lived in Commack we had the sirens and used them until 10pm. The good thing about the sirens was that sometimes my pager did not go off or sometimes the channel knob would go over to ch.2 without me knowing. The siren alerted me that there was a call. Also there was the times I was swimming in the pool,well I don't swim with a pager on,LOL, the siren let me know again that there was a call. The problem today is too many crybabies *****ing about the noise,well guess what whiners, when all hell breaks loose and there is no power the old sirens will be the only thing to let you know that there's an emergency in your town!!!!!!! I would prefer a little noise and be aware of a problem that might affect me than get caught in something that might kill me with no warning!!!!! That's my take on sirens.


Mike
Retired FDNY/EMS
HAZTAC

[dispatcher812]

Ours, when it was working, was also tied into our stations own fire alarm. So one day I am at home with nothing to do and suddenly hear our whistle going off. Nothing came over my pager. Myself and a few others went to the station to find out that our stations fire alarm had gone off. False alram but what if it wasn't.

[58006]

The noon test in Washington County is still announced as "This has been a group test of the Washington County Civil Defense Warning System......"

[Alarms50]

[QUOTE=wmetech1;1883306]
As a sort of side note, my department here just completed a multi million dollar expansion/renovation project. As part of the project the siren was replaced and a large backup generator installed as the station is also the town's emergency coordination center. The funny part is, unlike others suggested, the siren produces too much power draw and IS NOT operational in a power outage, though the county radio system IS. Also, when Westchester underwent their radio system overhaul/trunked system upgrade the system was built to and largely proven to have close to 100% coverage, which includes pagers. So during hurricane Sandy, as long as my scanner was charged, that was the ONLY way to hear dispatches./QUOTE]

A question for you, is the siren you replaced, is it an older style mechanical siren or the new style electronic (speaker) style? If it is the mechanical style then yes it would definately draw more amperage and probably not be connected to the backup generator.

FYI - the trunked system does not activate the pagers, the pagers are activated from the same tower sites that are shared with the trunked system, just a different radio system.

[doctordialtone]

Originally Posted by Alarms50

A question for you, is the siren you replaced, is it an older style mechanical siren or the new style electronic (speaker) style? If it is the mechanical style then yes it would definitely draw more amperage and probably not be connected to the backup generator.

FYI - the trunked system does not activate the pagers, the pagers are activated from the same tower sites that are shared with the trunked system, just a different radio system.

In our area here in CT, we have two;

The Fire House has a mechanical that blows 4 times for Structure Fire or Residential/Commercial Alarms.

The second siren was speaker type mounted on a water tower, which recently stopped working. I don't know the brand, but the speakers / drivers cost a fortune to replace, so we decided to leave it out of service. Another oddity about the speaker siren was that it actually RAN off of batteries, which were on constant trickle charge. Therefore, it cost about $120.00 per month in electricity to charge the batteries.

I understand the newer models are capable of blasting anything from various siren sounds to Christmas Carols.

Our siren is activated over the air only as a part of the tone sequence for the pagers, with a dedicated 2-tone of 1130Hz/1669Hz - and it does run on our generator.

I could throw a softball and hit the siren tower from my back yard, so uh yeah.

We're a Combination/Volunteer operation from 6:00AM to 4:30PM with Fire Duty Officer and EMS Duty Office on-call overnight and weekends. We do between 1000 and 1100 calls annually.

The Waterford/New London area of CT has a bunch of speaker-driven towers installed because of the Nuke Plant that double as paging horns. If you're out on the waters of Long Island Sound when they test them, you can hear the sounds and announcements echoing down the coast as the sound from each one reaches you. It's spooky!

[902]

Some sirens require three-phase AC for the motors. I went through a bunch of Federal and a few other manufacture tornado sirens in the Midwest at one point in my career. Some of them looked like vacuum cleaners or spinning tubas and most of them were installed at the height of the Cold War. One had so much torque that it split the pole over the years. I thought it might go spinning off the pole one day and into the firehouse next to it.

I had these removed and replaced with Whelen WPS electronic sirens which were basically big vehicle sirens that ran stacked 400 W drivers for each speaker segment. The motorized AC sirens were almost bulletproof (literally... some of them had bullet holes), but the electronic ones were high maintenance. Getting AC hooked up without a meter was a nightmare, so I went solar. The batteries were on a 3 year replacement cycle (I had to stretch them to 4 years because of budget), the drivers would open (seemed to run in batches), or the amps would short and fail. Over the years they got more reliable, especially after AC power was eliminated. Solar didn't cook off the batteries and the only lightning threat we had now was a direct hit, not a power line spike. We used radio controlled activation and the link radios (first batch were OEM'd by EFJ, subsequent batches were Ritron) were two-way devices. The siren was controlled by a microprocessor device. Very finicky on audio characteristics, but resistant to spoofing. After we got the process down, we were installing about 5 per year at a cost of about $20k for the equipment and $5k for the installation labor (union men) and pole.

In that configuration, the sirens were as reliable and independent as an alerting receiver, unless they got hit by lightning or a truck.

BTW, you CAN do siren control through a trunked system, and even a P25 system! Before I vested out, I asked for $2M (~150 tornado sirens, equipment, and technician time to retrofit each device) to remove the analog VHF radios, replace them with 700 MHz radios, pull the controller, and equip them with ACE3600 RTUs that would also control the sirens and provide diagnostic feedback. Ultimately, they decided to keep the VHF system intact just for that (and they STILL needed to buy and install narrowband radios). Oh well.

[wmetech1]

Originally Posted by Alarms50

A question for you, is the siren you replaced, is it an older style mechanical siren or the new style electronic (speaker) style? If it is the mechanical style then yes it would definately draw more amperage and probably not be connected to the backup generator.

FYI - the trunked system does not activate the pagers, the pagers are activated from the same tower sites that are shared with the trunked system, just a different radio system.

Nope, they went with a mechanical style--they replaced it with essentially the exact same thing:




And yes, I know, the dispatches are sent on 46.2600 at most departments, and many even have their own frequencies/repeaters. My point was I believe that the radio system and ipage (text message paging) the county uses have proven more reliable than station sirens, though I do agree that the sirens are still important.

My job over the summer had me working outdoors quite frequently, and to my surprise, I was able to hear both neighboring fire station's signals (one siren, one horn) when there was a call. The furthest station is about 2.3 mi and the other is 1.5 mi (straight line distance)