TWINSONIC CTS in New Zealand

[Nz lightbar collector]

Hello everyone!
So I have this all red federal signal twinsonic cts which I bought locally here in Auckland online about 13 years ago for $50,
It's just moved around with me over the years, I've had it working when I first got it but haven't really looked at it too hard,
It wasn't until I posted my collection on here last year that I wa told it was a rare cts bar, unfortunately it's missing both its dome caps on each end which has the manufacturers tags, and I think finding two cts caps will be hard!
Anyways I was told it came from some sort of emergency vehicle that came in New from the US in the 1970s
What's unusual about this compared to others I've seen is it has relays in the speaker housing, a Japanese made speaker, a tridonic can flasher, and instead of the orange flashing and a fixed red, it's the opposite with a flashing front par lamp and a fixed amber to the rear, and I've had a good look at the wiring with the two par lamps and it doesn't seem like there's any evidence they have been tampered with, nuts and bolts all look like they have never been touched the earth for each par lamp is bolted underneath the lamp it's powering, it looks like it was setup this way from factory? Anyways I'm going to give it a good clean, one of the rotating fittings seems to skip or stop for a second when on for some reason,
Anyone know how old this bar might be? And also if there's any chance on finding any cts dome caps for each end,
Any info would be great!

Thanks
Blair

 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

If you can procure endcaps of ANY type.. elb member @ryan has reproduction cts tags. If I remember correctly he will even install them for you on the endcaps if you send them to him.

 

[ryan]

Yes, i have cts endcaps in stock. Email me at fdny5555@yahoo.com

 

[Nolines]

Hey its the Lightbar from Rescue 51 from Emergency!!

 

[Wailer]

The speaker looks like a car alarm type.

 

[stansdds]

That's a Federal Signal CTS Series A1 TwinSonic! The front stationary PAR-46 should be steady burn and the rear PAR-36 should be on the flasher. These are sought after and prized TwinSonics here in the states, now fetching many hundreds of dollars.

 

[Nz lightbar collector]

Thanks for everyone's replies! I didn't even realize what I had until I joined this site, I knew it was a twinsonic but didn't know it was a rare California model, I must email Ryan and get some end caps for it,

I have been doing a bit of work on this bar last week, changed the wiring so the rear amber flashes and the front par lamp steady burns as per factory spec, re-aligned the rotators to synchronized flash, and when doing this I discovered the the long chain had been crossed over into a figure 8 at some point ( by mistake I assume) so that got put right, and I found out the skipping on the short chain side was due to the chain being slack so I re fixed the rotator plate and tension it up,
The lenses have had a good polish with mothers plastic polish and I polished the stainless steel up aswell, cleaned underneath the speaker plate etc so it's nice and clean,
Does anyone know what the stainless plates mounted underneath the bar might be for? I thought it was decorative as it looks to have been mounted to something through the speaker section only and that you could clearly see underneath either end so stainless sheets were installed

 

[Maxim2Eng]

Those plates don't belong there...I'm guessing they are covering the three sets of holes for the mounting brackets (gutter clamp tubes or the gutterless clamp/permanent tubes). Probably to keep dirt out of the bar (there would have been plastic plug caps in the unused holes).

 

[stansdds]

The long chain may have stretched to the point it was no longer working properly and someone twisted it into a figure 8 in order to take up the slack. Otherwise, they did it so that the lamp assemblies on both sides rotated in the same direction.

 

[Maxim2Eng]

If the chain has stretched, it's easy to remove "links" with needle-nose pliers.

 

[Wailer]

There was another New Zealander on the forum who told me that emergency services there used to use American made lights and sirens.

 

[PDLIGHTNING]

The LA County Museum has restored the Station 51 trucks. The new museum opens July 14.

 

[Nolines]

Hopefully there is a website of the museum and the restored trucks

 

[Nz lightbar collector]

I've put the chain back in its correct position and it seems to work fine now I loosened off both rotator plates and pulled them across a bit in opposite directions to tighten the chain,

 

[Nz lightbar collector]

There was another New Zealander on the forum who told me that emergency services there used to use American made lights and sirens.

Yes weve used American lightbar s etc over here for decades, various departments have previously used federal visibars, jetsonics, streethawks, vision, code3 XL, lp6000s mx7000s, Tomar heliobes aswell, I'm not so familiar with the led lightbar names but currently in use are code3 led bars tomar led bars and federal
Signal led bars, as well as locally manufactured nautech electronics led bars,

Hence the reason most of my collection of
Lightbars are American made but are all of local emergency vehicles

 

[PDLIGHTNING]

http://www.lacountyfiremuseum.com/ Check it out!

 

[ERIC6913]

Thanks for that link, I'm going to go and check it out!

 

[Thomas1234]

It's funny to see they used this Wooper siren in there, the CTS i recieved from the US got the same siren!