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A Civil Defense Museum wouldn't be complete without a section on warning
sirens.
During the cold war virtually every city had a siren warning system
to warn citizens of a coming nuclear attack. Today, cities that are
regularly threatened with natural disasters (tornados, floods etc.)
are still using outdoor siren systems. Most of the sirens that were
intended for attack warning only have been taken down or are rusting
away pitifully at the top of their poles.
Matt Preston of Minnesota sent me these two videos of the Thunderbolt 1003 on top of HO Sonnesyn Elementary School in New Hope Minnesota.
He shot the video during an evening test (6:55 pm) so the video is a somewhat dark but the audio really captures the sound of the Thunderbolt siren. I've never heard of a town doing an evening test. The videos are Divx Avi files so I think you will need the Divx codec to view them. The first video is the first half of the test with the siren doing an alert signal. The second half is the second half of the test with the siren doing an attack signal. Sorry no hi-lo signal. Thanks Matt for the vids! Videos are 3 Mb in size.
 Click Photo To See Larger |
Siren Sounds
These files are in MP3 format and are about 400Kb to 1MB in size.
Valley View, Texas Thunderbolt 1000.
Here are a couple of recordings of the Valley View Texas Thunderbolt siren. I have a page up covering the hook-up of this siren here. There were problems with the rotator that we encountered after hooking it up in early 2004. After the rotator problems I overhauled one of Valley View's other horn/rotator units so they just replaced the first siren they had installed with the overhauled unit. The overhauled horn/rotator was installed on Jan. 08 2004. I'm overhauling 2 more horn/rotator units for Valley View as of this writing.
Valley View Thunderbolt 1000 Alert Signal File Size 800kb
Valley View Thunderbolt 1000 Attack Signal File Size 930kb
American Signal T-135. Allen Texas, Fire Station Number 2 Monthly Test.
The City of Allen used to run their sirens for a 3 minute test. 1 min. steady tone, 1 min. off, 1 min "Attack" (on-off, wavering signal). This siren is located about a mile from my house. Since it is the loudest siren still manufactured we had no problem hearing it even during the heaviest storms. This is probably the nastiest siren I have ever heard. It has the creepiest wind up. It has the weird of quality of sounding like two completely different sirens starting up a the same time. I'm sure going to miss this monster.This siren was removed and sold at auction in late 2004. See the removal here.
American Signal T-135 Steady Tone 1st part of test. File Size 1.8Mb
American Signal T-135 Attack Signal (Cut short due to passing FedEx truck.) File Size 800KB
Federal Signal 2t22. Allen Texas, Story Elem. School. Monthly Test.
City of Allen Monthly test. One minute "Alert" (steady blast) signal, One minute "Attack" (on-off, wavering) signal. Click on the siren timer buttons or the links below to hear the 2t22 in each mode. The 2t22 is probably the nicest sounding of all the mechanical sirens.
This siren was removed and sold at auction in late 2004.
(Alert and attack are the only buttons that work)
Federal 2t22 Alert Signal. Steady Tone. 1st part of test.
Federal 2t22 Attack Signal. 2nd part of test.
Alerting Communicators of America Hurricane 130, Garland, Texas Fire Station.
I think the City of Garland has replaced just about all of these old sirens. I had never heard one these until May, 2 2002 when I made this recording. I was really impressed! They ran it for 2, one minute alert cycles about 3 minutes apart during their montly test.This siren was removed and sold at auction in late 2004. See photos of it here on the ACA Siren Page.
This recording is of the first one minute cycle.
ACA Hurricane in Alert Signal. Steady Tone. 1st part of test.
Sentry Siren 20V2T. Allen, Texas Boyd Elem. School. Monthly Test.
The City of Allen runs their sirens for a 3 minute test. 1 min. steady tone, 1 min. off, 1 min "Attack" (on-off, wavering signal). These recordings are from the same test. I split it up into the first minute and the last minute of the test respectively. Scott Yarberry at Sentry Siren instantly replied to my question about this siren. He said there were only about 50 of these square horn models made in the early to mid 1980s. They discontinued the square horns and went to the round horn design because the round horns are much simpler to manufacture. This siren was removed and sold at auction in late 2004.
Sentry in Alert Signal. Steady Tone. 1st part of test.
Sentry in Attack Signal. Wavering Tone. End of test.
Federal Thunderbolt 1000T. Allen, Texas Main Fire Station. Monthly Test.
The City of Allen runs their sirens for a 3 minute test. 1 min. steady tone, 1 min. off, 1 min "Attack" (on-off, wavering signal). These recordings are from the same test. I split it up into the first minute and the last minute of the test respectively. This siren was removed and sold at auction in late 2004.
Thunderbolt in Alert Signal. Steady Tone. 1st part of test.
Thunderbolt in Attack Signal. Wavering Tone. End of test.
Grayson County, Texas, Airport Fire Department Siren.
The fire personnel at the Grayson County airport were good enough to run up their siren for a short blast for me to record. I'm not sure what type of siren this is. I think it is a Federal Model 3 or 5. It has a slow wind up and the coast down went on for at least 2 minutes. I faded it out at the end since it was just going on and on. You can hear a plane revving it's engine toward the end of the clip.
Short blast of Grayson County Airport Siren
Siren Recording Sent From UK By Dave Mapley
I have to thank Dave for sending me this recording in May of 2002. Here is his description of the recording....
The format of this recording is interesting as it comes complete with the signals transmitted down the phone line to start the machine working. In the UK sirens were operated automatically from central locations called carrier control points (CCP's.) These were normally located in major police stations. Outside of towns certain public buildings such as volunteer fire stations, post offices, village shops and in remote areas even pubs had a device called a carrier receiver (CR.) The CR was a one way device on which the Attack Warning could be given, the shop owner had a hand operated siren on their premises which they would then operate.
UK Siren Recording With Tones
