Rate the sirens
- Thread starter Wailer
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Henry455
Member
Skip Goulet said:
I have always wondered why Federal used "make before break" (shorting) contacts on their rotary switches in those sirens, especially if it is detrimental to the electronic components.
Henry455 said:
That's an audio oscillator so it's not detrimental at all. Make before break contacts are only bad if you are dealing with larger power currents and not signal level voltages.
Personally, I wish Powercall would put the older wail/yelp/hi-lo tones on their sirens since they cater to the more traditional market and their equipment is robust enough to handle the lower frequencies.
Wailer said:
Wailer: The reason that the Powercall unit sounds like a Carson is because Carson built some of Powercall's initial units early on. However, David Fierstein now builds his own units in-house, I understand.
Jasonc said:
I couldn't agree with you more, Jason. However, I would be willing to be that the Powercalls have become victim to the same "plague" as some of the other newer sirens that have been discussed during this thread: microprocessors, not "real" amplifiers. Get back to transistors, resistors and capacitors and you might have a decent sounding siren. As I noted above, the inexpensive Speedtech siren I have is good and loud. It just sounds terrible in wail mode. One of the first sirens that I used that had a microprocessor was a Mars Clarion that was built c.1981. I just couldn't stand that "squeally" sound it made. Would you believe, though, it was stolen out of the Suburban ambulance we had it in? First time I wasn't all that pissed about losing something. Whoever ended up with it got what they deserved!
Say, Henry, I like that nice-looking CS8B you have.....all nice and chromed. I have one, too, that Kevin built for me that replaced an S8B that disappeared from B&M many years ago that had been sent in for repairs (very long story). Wouldn't part with it.
Here's another case of a municipality having more money than brains! I had mentioned earlier above (I think I did) about the Odessa Fire Dept. putting the little Screaming Eagle sirens on the new Horton Type III ambulances they bought not quite three years ago. Well, they've done it again! Lone Star Emergency Vehicles here in Texas recently sold Odessa three new heavy duty crew-cabbed International ambulances. Lone Star's salesman, whom I know (he worked for an Odessa private ambulance) tried to talk OFD into using B&M Super Chiefs at a lot less money than what they had paid for their original Eagles. However, they absolutely specified the Eagles on these new rigs. Because special brackets had to be made to mount the Eagles on these big new Internationals, each Eagle has cost OFD more than $4000 each. That's almost the price of two Super Chiefs, or maybe two Qs, for Pete's sake! Go figure. :duh:
Black Hoe
Member
The Federal PA-15A Director was labeled as the "economy" model electronic siren because they lacked the "deluxe" features of the PA-20A Interceptor such as the separate mounting bracket, plug-in microphone, edge lighted control panel and the Hi-Lo tone. Both the Interceptor and Director models were identical in sound output and both sirens in their respective E-series models were capable of the famous in-between sounds we all enjoyed back in the day. Some still do now since many are still in service!
I have to say the Carson Defender is an awesome Q. It has a slow deep rising wail and for those times when you really need to get everybody moving it has the phaser feature which is my favorite of all siren tones. And the horn on the Carson is also real deep and loud. The sirens I hate the most are Heathkit, Whelen and the worst is the Federal interceptor 400 this Q is to sharp sounding
and almost sounds like a high picthed bird. Dont ever buy the federal interceptor. You'd be better off putting a couple of falcons on the roof of your car cause they sound alot like the interceptor. lol
and almost sounds like a high picthed bird. Dont ever buy the federal interceptor. You'd be better off putting a couple of falcons on the roof of your car cause they sound alot like the interceptor. lolFirstResponder said:I have to say the Carson Defender is an awesome Q. It has a slow deep rising wail and for those times when you really need to get everybody moving it has the phaser feature which is my favorite of all siren tones. And the horn on the Carson is also real deep and loud. The sirens I hate the most are Heathkit, Whelen and the worst is the Federal interceptor 400 this Q is to sharp sounding
F.R., you're one up on me. I haven't had a chance to hear the mechanical sound on the new Carsons. I've seen them advertised. I would like to hear what their Stuttertone air horn sounds like, too. For a number of years they built for other siren brands with the other co.'s logo. For many years they built for SVP; but for some reason the technical quality got to be an issue, so SVP, builds their own units in-house and they're sooooo much better. My 1984 Chevy Starline Type II ambulance came with a Carson SA500 (with the SVP label). It was a decent-sounding siren, but in the middle of an intersection on a hot run, the unit went kerplunk on us. The only thing that worked was the airhorn. We had just bought the siren from SVP, so it was warranted. SVP sent us a new SA770 in its place, and it was twice the siren as the Carson. The SA770 had a new feature called Alert (not like the old Alert on vintage Interceptors and Directors). With the selector setting on "Alert" you push the manual button and out comes this funky almost-a-whooping sound. Gets attention, for sure. SVP is also marketing units with the mechanical tone, but I've not heard theirs either. What sounds like crap are the original Whelens that had their first mechanical tone. They were very high pitched (but loud), but had a very quick drop-off. Even though there have been some issues with them, the Federal EQ2B beat the Whelen all over the place. As to the Carsons, I'm not knocking their products by any means.....I've used them for years. I understand that there was simply something inherently wrong with the SA500s. Hopefully they'll get that corrected, if they haven't already done so.
Love the Motorola Siren, I think its the 1185 Model that hooks in with the either Astro Spectra, Spectra and Systems 9000
Loud tones and I think the best airhorn
Loud tones and I think the best airhorn
Wailer said:
Cooper High School in Abilene, TX, had an original PA5 Director siren along with an original PA24 speaker (this is the one that resembles an old Federal mechanical siren with a grille, not the short projector of the PA25). Both of these were mounted into a specially-built carrying case that also contained a car battery to power the siren. The school had what they called a "Siren Squad", and this group of guys carried this siren setup to all Cooper football games for many, many years, until the University Interscholastic League stopped all schools from having "noisemakers" such as sirens, horns, canons, etc. They now only allow victory bells. Back when Cooper used their siren, at my school we couldn't be outdone, so we mounted a nice old 6-volt B&M S-8 siren on a plywood board, along with a 6-volt car battery and a big footswitch for the siren (all thanks to my dad's help). We took this to our football games; and on occasion got to compete with Cooper's Director. It was all done in fun, and the Cooper kids had as much fun as we did. Cooper's original Director is still on display in their school hallway.
My favorite siren
My ambulance which is a few months old has a whelen dual tone siren. Im not sure of the model. We have it programmed to Q along with either wail, yelp, or phaser. Inside the ambulance it sounds wierd, but down the road it sounds like a fire truck coming. You hear the Q before you hear the other siren.
My ambulance which is a few months old has a whelen dual tone siren. Im not sure of the model. We have it programmed to Q along with either wail, yelp, or phaser. Inside the ambulance it sounds wierd, but down the road it sounds like a fire truck coming. You hear the Q before you hear the other siren.
bobnash78 said:
I hope that Whelen has improved the sound of their mechanical siren mode. Their original "X-Ecutor" sounded absolutely terrible!! The one I heard was on a heavy duty International ambulance. It was loud enough with the full 200-watt output, but it had a high-putched screech, and a very quick roll down with sudden shut off. I really wouldn't want to run hot with that thing. By comparison, I had an EQ2 mounted in a Type II Ford Frontline ambulance, The EQ2 replaced the factory-supplied Federal PA500, which also sounded like crap. Outside the van the EQ2 definitely sounded like a "real" Q coming down the street, and it has a decent coast to it. Nothing compared to how a real coaster siren rolls, but nice none-the-less. The yelp sounds terrible, but the airhorn sound is awesome!
Henry455
Member
Skip, are you sure it was a Xecutor you heard. All the Xecutors including the ones I have owned had a long coast and were much lower pitched than the EQ. Also, the Xecutor was never offered with a 200 watt output. The dual speaker model had a 130 watt output. With the unique Xecutor speaker, Whelen claimed 126 dba with 100 watt output, 4 db more than the EQ with 200 watt output.
Henry455 said:
Henry: I'm quite sure that it was an Xecutor that I saw. Now, that was nine years ago at Professonal Ambulance Sales near Ft. Worth. They had this big rig International ambulance inside and they were working on the siren. It had a 200-watt Whelen speaker mounted on the front bumper; and because of the loude sound inside the garage, they had put a shop towel doubled up in the front of the speaker. I looked at the control head and it was a Whelen. Now in my post above, I mentioned how badly the siren sounded: high pitch, short roll, etc. It just dawned on me while reading your reply that that may be why they were working on the siren: something was wrong with it. Since I was there just for a short time, I never new what else happened. :bonk:
CrownVic97
Member
EMS7EMT said:
I don't know why, but I really like how the HI/LO sounds on these sirens. It commands attention and sense of urgency. And the WAIL and YELP tones sound very close to a PA200. The video below is the only one I've seen of the Mototola Spectra with siren controls on YouTube. Why there's not more videos of this siren system beats me, but hopefully that'll change.
Black Hoe
Member
Agreed. They were great sounding sirens with the wail and yelp very simular to the Federal PA-200. The wail also sounded like the Unitrol Omega 90 wail. Our old chief cars had these sirens back in the 90's. I'm not sure who actually manufactured the siren modules for Motorola.
NCFD43
Member
I don't know why, but I really like how the HI/LO sounds on these sirens. It commands attention and sense of urgency. And the WAIL and YELP tones sound very close to a PA200. The video below is the only one I've seen of the Mototola Spectra with siren controls on YouTube. Why there's not more videos of this siren system beats me, but hopefully that'll change.
Black Hoe said:
Well, I'm really glad some of you guys have heard the Spectra sirens: I haven'! I've seen one or two at some of the HAM radio swapfests over the past few years, but they weren't hooked up.
Two older sirens that had brain-jarring wail, yelp and hi-lo tones were the Sireno Projector series (the early model with a selector, not pushbuttons), and one that I mentioned very early in this thread, the Vista Electronic manufactured in Kansas City, KS. Both of these sirens had unusually deep-throated sounds, especially in hi-lo. Both sirens' wail and yelp functions were also slowed down somewhat. I have a Sireno Projector siren that I got off Ebay about five years ago and won't part with. While I suspect that there may still be some out there, I haven't seen a Vista in many years.
Henry455
Member
Skip, I have a operators manual/schematic/parts list for the Sireno Projectors series sirens if you need a copy.
Retired1
Member
I just purchased a Whelen Alpha 12M. I have not gotten it yet. I have not seen any comment about these here.
Any thoughts will be appreciated
Any thoughts will be appreciated
Henry: I'm o.k. on the Sireno for the moment; but what i really need is a manual on a North American siren, S-100, I want to say. It's the pushbutton model, 100-watts w/wired in mic. My friend who is a retired vollie fire chief bought one off ebay and has had problems with the unit. He's called North American and they refuse to let anyone have or see a schematic on the thing. If you don't have one, we'd be open to suggestions.
Retired1 said:
I bought one of those Alpha-12s about five years ago off this board. It worked very well, had a nice sound, was plenty loud, and the manual "Q" sound was fne. Only problem I had was that I only got the amp., not the control head. A friend was able to rig up a suitable control head, and I got good use ot of the unit. I eventually sold it to a friend who is a volunteer fire chief, and it went on his pickup. His department recently bought a batt. chief's car that had been recently retired, and he put one of the Speedtech (which is mentioned in this thread) dual-amp. 200-watt siren, so I don't know what happened to the Alpha. Except for the terrible sound of the wail on the Speedtech, it's a loud siren. As to your Alpha, if you got the control head in the package, you should be good to go and you should be well pleased.
natep24
Member
natep24 said:
Sometime back in the '80s, the Today Show on NBC paid a visit to the B&M siren plant in Southern California when the original owner, Dick Miles, was still running things. He took the cameras on a tour of the plant, including their repair/rebuild shop, and at the end just had to show them a demo unit that was hooked up on the bench. His technician let off with a decent blast from the siren on the bench. That nearly scattered the TV crew! Then they all went outside and Dick took them across the street to (guess where?) the Grover plant. I have never heard such a noise in all my life with all those airhorns being tested. Dick was trying to explain to the reporter what was going on. No use! Kevin O'Connell may still have a copy of that tape.
Wailer said:
Wailer, if I had more computer expertise I'd get some sounds of my Sireno....it still works! Haven't seen the Vistas in many years. Henry....I know you have a Sireno manual. Do you have the entire unit that you could demo for Wailer?
Henry455
Member
Henry455 said:
Thanks, Henry. Would you have a manual to the North American sirens? I tried to PM you, but I don't think it went through. My good friend who's a retired vollie fire chief has one of those things and it needs work. He called North American, as they are still in production, but they won't let anyone have a manual. I think they're afraid someone might duplicate their circuitry.
my favorite sirens are anything from unitrol and the whelen sirens, i used to like the powercall sirens till they implemented the old wail tone it is really annoying the best mechanical is Q2A i saw one of the older versions on youtube and it sounds great. but the worst are the PA sirens i cant stand those.
davnick said:
I noticed that you're from Rochester. That's pretty close to where the SVP plant is located. I'm surprised that you didn't mention their sirens since they're built that close to you. I believe that I mentioned very early in this thread that until around 2001, SVP's sirens were built by Carson. Carson's sirens sounded just fine, but soemtimes the workmanship wasn't that great. My small service bought a used ambulance in 2002 that came with an SVP SA500 siren: the last one they carried that was produced by Carson. It gave out right in the middle of a run, leaving only the airhorn function working. Since the thing was in warranty, the ambulance dealer put me in contact directly with SVP, and they replaced the Carson with their new SA770, which replaces the SA500. That was so much better, and it also included their new "alert" function, which is an unusual rise and hold when you hold in the manual button with the selector on "alert". There is no run down on this sound. But it's very attention getting and moves traffic.
Davnick, you say that you don't like the PA sirens. Do you mean specifically Federal's PA series such as the PA20s, PA15s, PA200s, etc., or just any electronic siren that has a PA function?
Wailer said:
Hey Wailer, I know you don't like those high toned sirens. That's why I mentioned the deep-pitched Sireno and the Vistas. Another one I've briefly mentioned was the Sonic Siren which was built by a subsidiar of Smith & Wesson. It was almost as deep-pitched as my Vista had been, and had a slow wail and hi-lo (that would rattle your brain). Don't know why they went out of business!
Here's something else that I had forgotten to mention before. You may remember the first SVP sirens that came out in the '70s: the ones with the black box and the big red square manual button on the front. These were built by Carson. At that time, SVP was an independent Florida-based company. They were later bought out by Star Lantern Co. in NY, who now is building in-house s I've mentioned. Anyway, those original SVPS had a bit of a mellow pitch: not to high, not too low; but had a fairly fast wail rate. A two-way radio technician in Lubbock knew how to slow down the wail on the SVPs. He worked on a friend's SVP siren, and it really made a difference. It sounded almost like the Vistas, except not quite as deep-pitched. My friend had wanted an electronic siren that had a wail like a mechanical siren, and that's as close as they could get at the time. Too bad it took another 30 years to get into something like the EQ2s and the other mechanical-sound sirens that are out there now.
Skip Goulet said:
Now that you mention Smith & Wesson, I really like the early S&W Magnum electronic sirens (early to mid 1970s). The have a deep low-pitched slow rising wail tone just like the late 1960s Federal PA15A and PA20A sirens. My most memorable moment in hearing a S&W Magnum was back in the late 1970s, when I saw a 1975 Superior / Pontiac 54" high top ambo running code 3. The ambo was several blocks away, but the long windup on that siren wail sure jarred my brain and made my heart pound. It was like music to my ears. A S&W Magnum of that vintage is the holy grail to complete my small siren collection.
Wailer said:
You're right again, Wailer. Those older Magnum sirens were awesome. I had forgotten about the slow rate they had. Before I left Lubbock I loaned some of my electronic sirens to the volunteer fire department that I had helped organize and had been president of for several years. Included in that "loan" was Magnum III and that nice Sonic that I've mentioned; and if I'm not mistaken, the Vista siren, too. That's been 20 years, so there's no telling where any of those sirens might be nowadays. And it mentioning those "loaners", it also brings to mind one electronic siren that I totally detest, and I don't think I've seen mentioned in this thread, any of the sirens built by Code 3. The Odessa Fire Dept. has some Code 3 sirens on the engines that they got from Pierce. Fortunately, those engines are also equipped with Qs. Those Code 3 sirens have a very scratchy, growly sound on wail, that almost sounds like a cat that got its tail stepped on.
While these sirens were never built for much wattage output, another very slow wailing siren I once saw was one of the early Heathkit GD18 electronic sirens. If you remember, they came in kit form or pre-assembled from Heath. They were rated at only 50 watts output, which was really the only downside about them. One nice feature was a small adjustment on the back that controlled the siren's pitch....where you could adjust from low to medium to high (or anywhere in between). Now the Heathkit siren that I mentioned at the first belonged to a friend many, many years ago who was a volunteer firemen in the small East Texas town in which he lived; but he was a travelling electronics parts salesman. He had the Heathkit siren mounted in his Rambler wagon with the round 50-watt speaker mounted underhood. On one of his visits he just had to show off the GD18. He turned it to wail, and at that time I had never heard such a slow wail rate on any electronic siren before. Now I don't remember if he had bought this siren pre-assembled or if he built the unit himself. I seem to think that he did the build himself, which could easily explain the slow rate. Since he was extremely good at electronics, he could've easily done some substitutions on the capacitors to alter the wail rate. I later bought a GD18 at a Ham radio swapfest, and tried it out on one of my ambulances: a hightop Suburban that had twin Federal CP100 speakers over the cab. This particular Heath siren had a common wail rate: nothing fancy, but I was quite disappointed that the sound output didn't improve when used with the twin 100-watt speakers. It didn't seem to move traffic any better than it would've with the factory-provided 50-watt speaker. I guess that 50 watts is 50 watts: period!
But having said that, I may have mentioned very early in this thread about an ambulance that served the small town of Canyon, TX. Canyon is a small college town about 15 mi. south of Amarillo, and at the time was served by Metropolitan Ambulance Service which was based in Amarillo. They serviced Amarillo, Canyon and Pampa (to the northeast). In 1976 they placed a brand new hightop Dodge van ambulance in Canyon which had been built in Arlington, TX by a company originally called Beck-Rank, Inc., and later known as Prestige Vehicles. The ambulance came equipped with the usual front and rear tunnel lights, with a big red 4-lamp beacon on the hightop. But what was impressive (both in sight and sound) was the threeFederal CP100 speakers mounted above the cab. They were connected to a PA15A Director. Now, since you have considerable expertise in Federal electronics, Wailer, you know that the Directors were rated at only 54 watts. But I assure you, running that Director off those three 100-watt speakers was mind-blowing (not to mention ear-shattering). The only other unusual combo. like that that would beat that setup came from an older ambulance that we bought from Metropolitan in 1982. It was a Chevy Type II ambulance built by the long-since-defunct Tram Corp. of Tulsa,OK. This neat old van ambulance was the "VistaCruiser" of ambulances, as it had the vista-cruiser panoramic windows built into the hightop. It also had a working sink (quite uncommon even then). The unit came with a pair of CP100 speakers over the cab, attached to a North American pushbutton siren (with the "riot" function). Now this setup was more than adequate. But after we had had this unit for some time, one of my crew chiefs just couldn't be outdone. So he added two more CP100 speakers over the cab (talk about a full roof!) and replaced the N.A. siren with a new Federal PA 200 that could be adjusted for a full 200-watt output. Now talk about loud! 'Nuff said!!
Skip Goulet said:
With the old Federal electronic sirens, the rule of thumb is: more speakers = more power. The PA15A runs at 58 watts with one speaker and 100 watts with two speakers. The PA200 runs at 100 watts with one speaker and 200 watts with two speakers.
Skip Goulet said:
I have never heard them before i will check youtube but thanks, and yes the federal PA series. ill be honest im more new to most of this so i haven't heard most of the stuff out there except newer products.
thanks,
Nick
I looked at the newer sirens and loved them, the one i liked the most was the command center very nice siren.
thanks,
Nick
thanks,
Nick
davnick said:
Glad you liked what you found, Nick. The Star people are really nice to work with. When our original Carson SA500 went out, we ended up with the SA770, which is kick-a**! What was so very nice of Star guys was that we were told to send in the SA500 for repairs, as it was under warranty. So when we got the SA770 as a loaner, I called to see if we could simply pay the difference. Turns out that the SA770 they sent was a refurb., so they kept our 500 and we got to keep the 770, no money difference. Now that's what I call good business!
Wailer said:
You got me that time, Wailer. I had meant to say 58, not 54, as I did. Sometimes my fingers get ahead of my brain on this contraption! Either way, the Director was awesome on the three speakers and that PA200 "kicking" four PA100s: ouch!