Rate the sirens

[Lseg810]

best electronic


Whelen CenCom Gold


best mechanical


Federal Q2B


I personally like the CenCom Gold system the best. The tones on all the other systems seem to differ a little but I think all the tones including Hi/Lo and the Whelen mechanical sound best on the gold. Also the gold seems to have a deeper air horn than all the other whelen systems. And nothing beats a Q.

 

[jprleedy4680]

I've always loved FS Smart Sirens, followed by FS Unitrol Touchmaster.


I've always thought the Motorola Spectra sirens (MSP uses them) have a unique sound, too.


I'm a purist when it comes to fire apparatus. Grovers and mechanical only; but for the love of God don't just step on the Q-switch and hold it there. Wind it up and down.

 

[Skip Goulet]

I've always loved FS Smart Sirens, followed by FS Unitrol Touchmaster.

I've always thought the Motorola Spectra sirens (MSP uses them) have a unique sound, too.


I'm a purist when it comes to fire apparatus. Grovers and mechanical only; but for the love of God don't just step on the Q-switch and hold it there. Wind it up and down.

If you don't like people standing down their Q like that, you would've fainted if you'd seen what happened here in Midland in late 1959. Thomas Funeral Home had put a then-new 1960 Ford sedan-delivery ambulance into service. It had a roof-mounted Q. On Easter Sunday afternoon there was a tremendous car wreck on the far northwest side of town, which at that time was still well outside the city. It's not that way now, by any means. Two cars collided at an unmarked intersection resulting in six fatalities and three or four other injuries. Ellis Funeral Home responded with their '59 Ford wagon and '58 Chrysler, while Thomas ran the new Ford and their '57 Plymouth. We lived just a block off the highway that led to the road where the accident occurred, so we could hear all the sirens running. My dad and I walked up to the corner of the highway to see what was going on. The Thomas Ford was first-in ambulance. When that unit reached the highway, whoever was driving leaned down on the Q and never let up on it from that point until that made the turn in at the hospital: about a five mile run or better with that Q running at peak the whole time. That unit, the Thomas Plymouth and Ellis' Ford wagon all made back and forth runs; and whoever was driving that '60 Thomas Ford stayed on the Q as I've just mentioned during both runs to and from the scene. I was surprised that they didn't have a "system overload" from all that.

 

[Wailer]

...but for the love of God don't just step on the Q-switch and hold it there. Wind it up and down.

That's what I don't like about mechanical sirens. They are manually controlled. If they could be set up for a continuous rising and falling sound like an air raid siren, then I'd like them a whole lot more.

 

[Skip Goulet]

That's what I don't like about mechanical sirens. They are manually controlled. If they could be set up for a continuous rising and falling sound like an air raid siren, then I'd like them a whole lot more.

Federal did that when they came out with the EQ2B. I had one on my '92 Type II Ford ambulance for a while, and it did a good job. But pushing a full 200-watts to both of my 100-watt speakers sure heated them up. I ended up trading the EQ2 to a Canadian friend for a C5GB and a Mars 888 light.


What I disliked about the EQ2 was the size of the amplifier which was huge, and the yelp sounded terrible. The siren sound was fine, and the airhorn I really liked. If they had built that siren in a smaller package, I would've liked it a lot more.


Someone above mentioned not liking the EQ2 because it didn't sound real. I discovered that sitting in the cab behind the speakers, you could hear the electronic tone, but outside the truck, it actually sounded like a Q. I guess there's no getting totally away from the electronic sound despite the best efforts of Federal and the others whose sirens produce a mechanical tone. I have a Whelen Gamma II siren I bought thru this board and its mechanical tone is nice, and I love the very small package.

 

[CodeMan]

Since no one really pays a lot of attention to house alarms these days, I keep telling my wife we need to mount one of these babies on the roof and have it wired in to the system... Guaranteed to wake the dead.... LOL

 

[Phillyrube]

Phaser sound...bloody awful!

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I wonder how this will stack up against popular opinion...


When I was in SAR, I had a Fed Sig PA400SS Interceptor, I really liked the priority tone, wail and yelp were nice to. My brother had a Whelen HFS295, and I thought the thing was way too high pitched in comparison. When I was in the explorers, Enumclaw PD ran the Motorola sirens, can't remember which model, but they were way high too. On the other hand, King County Sheriff ran one of the Unitrol that had a tone that sounded like it was from a classic video game machine. I always liked that one.

 

[grieuro]

My opinion , first comes the old type of Federal Signal Q siren , secondly Federal Signal PA300 (black faced) and the newer type PA300Series , they have very lound & clear tones , they have the best signal wave for the human ear. Third comes Code 3 V con sirens. The worst sirens for me is all Whelen sirens (295 and epsilon types) because the tones are very fast and not very lound in order to hear them. You can't hear them if you are far away from the truck when it's coming in contrast with PA300 sirens. Also i haven't hear any type of Carson sirens here and i have no idea for these.

 

[Skip Goulet]

Since no one really pays a lot of attention to house alarms these days, I keep telling my wife we need to mount one of these babies on the roof and have it wired in to the system... Guaranteed to wake the dead.... LOL

Just what every household needs! Out where I live the closest of the tornado sirens is more than 5 miles and can't be heard. The couple of times that we've had an actual alert I've gone outside with one of my big sirens, got the booster cables out and let loose. I wouldn't mind finding one like the one above, but they're so expensive!

 

[Skip Goulet]

I wonder how this will stack up against popular opinion...

When I was in SAR, I had a Fed Sig PA400SS Interceptor, I really liked the priority tone, wail and yelp were nice to. My brother had a Whelen HFS295, and I thought the thing was way too high pitched in comparison. When I was in the explorers, Enumclaw PD ran the Motorola sirens, can't remember which model, but they were way high too. On the other hand, King County Sheriff ran one of the Unitrol that had a tone that sounded like it was from a classic video game machine. I always liked that one.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it earlier in this thread, but two of my favorite electronics were both deep-throated and brain-rattling. One is the Sonic Siren which was made by a division of Smith and Wesson. I happened to find one via this board some time back. We used a Sonic on one of our ambulances in Lubbock, and it cleared traffic much better than I would've expected, and the deep-throated hi-lo would rattle your brain. The other one was quite similar: the Vista Siren which was built in Kansas City. It was deep pitched and had a slow rise and fall on wail, along with a slower yelp, and its hi-lo was quite similar to the Sonic.

 

[emcom]

Likes:

1980s Whelen WS295. We still have one in service in our 2008 F-550 Command Post truck. It has a nice deep sound to it.

Unitrol. Love their basic tones. I had a 95 Caprice with the Omega 9000 series control head. Was a nice unit, but sometimes it had to go to the shop because the siren would stop working I shied away from ever buying Omega because of that).

I currently run a UTMD in my car. Works great other than the wail/yelp/off switch is loose (I bought it used). Also have a UTM4 on the shelf at home. It has a A series serial no, so it is an old unit. Love the tones a lot on it.

I had a 94 Ford with a SVP SA-400 on it. It was a great siren. I liked how it sounded. I had the flat black whelen speaker on top of my edge bar. Perfect sound.

I also like the Motorola Astro/Spectra siren, but sad to see that they discontinued it for the APX line now. They sell you a siren interface box to work with a 3rd party amp .

Worst:

Smith and Wesson 800. It sounded like a toy. Our dept. had gotten rid of the S&W rotator bars, but held on to some of the sirens.

Tomar 940, sounds blah and disliked more so because of the microwave oven-like push buttons. I disliked it so much that I got the dept. to let me buy & install my own siren in my car! I am getting a new Charger and I am still putting my own siren in it.

Im not a fan of whelen's 1990s sirens and up. I don't like their basic wail & yelp.

 

[Skip Goulet]

Emcom, I agree with what you say about the S&W 800. We had one in a Suburban ambulance years ago. It was one of three sirens on the ambulance.  We also had a PA200 and a roof-mounted Q.  The PA200 was powered by twin CP100 speakers and the S&W by a grille mounted TS100.  And the light package was awesome: a pair of Trippe S200 beacons that came with PAR46 aircraft bulbs. 

The only thing that was nice about that 800 siren was the yelp, airhorn and hi/lo.  The wail sounded backwards!  But that's the problem with the later generation of a lot of electronic sirens that are powered by microprocessors and not "real" amplifiers like the PA200s, Interceptors, Directors, etc.

 

[Ren12]

They also have the famous Powercall sound, along with a terrible-sounding wail and a reasonable yelp.

Amen to that. The wail on the Powercall is atrocious and almost painful to hear. It's really bad.

 

[Wailer]

But that's the problem with the later generation of a lot of electronic sirens that are powered by microprocessors and not "real" amplifiers like the PA200s, Interceptors, Directors, etc.

Skip, it's not the power amp that has been changed.  What you are thinking of is the siren oscillator circuit.  'Old school' electronic sirens used a grid of resistors, capacitors, diodes, and transistors to generate the wail and yelp tones, while the current sirens use integrated circuits (ICs) in the mix. 

The older sirens were easier to repair, but not all of them sounded 'better' than what is currently offered.  New sirens could be made to sound like the old ones - it's all a matter of how the siren oscillator circuits are designed and programmed. 

You mentioned the PA200.  The Carson SA400 Classic (still in production) has wail and yelp tones that sound closest (in my opinion) to the PA200 and 1970s Director and Interceptor sirens. 

 

[Skip Goulet]

I would agree with you about the SA400.  We had one of  the SA400s that was built for SVP on our '70 high top Suburban ambulance when I was in Lubbock.  That was a good-sounding siren and was switchable up to 200-watts, which we did using a pair of CP100 speakers over the cab.

The SS series that Star now builds that replaces what Carson built for them sound decent, but not quite as good as the older SA400s.

I would've liked to have kept that SA400, but the Suburban was stolen in 1989 when I went through an extended hospital stay.  Ambulance (and of course the siren) were gone!