Buy Old Air Raid Siren BEST
With the sound etched in our minds from too much CNN over the last two weeks, we were surprised to learn that Los Angeles has its own preponderance of 20th century air raid sirens. As well as an entire community that is obsessed with them.
buy old air raid siren
It was during World War II and in the ensuing years of the Cold War that the Los Angeles Civil Defense Siren was instituted, typically operated by local government and law enforcement agencies, though produced by private enterprise. At one time, there were over 250 tower-strapped sirens in the city.
Cooper points out how some of the sirens have also been repurposed over the years. One SD-10 siren that was removed for the construction of L.A. Live! was turned into a floral sculpture called Daffodil Metamorphosis in 1996, by artist Michael Tansey then placed on Cherry Street, long viewable from the 110 Freeway. Another siren was employed in an aural art installation called Seirá by Brisbane-based composer and curator Lawrence English, which sounded tones across various parts of L.A. every evening over nine days in November, 2018.
None of the remaining sirens in LA county would ever work. The power lines have all been removed. The telephone line that controlled the operation of the siren is either gone or connected to nothing on the other end. And the condition of the sirens are very poor.
A civil defense siren, also known as an air-raid siren or tornado siren, is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. It is sometimes sounded again to indicate the danger has passed. Some sirens, especially within small municipalities, are also used to alert the fire department when needed. Initially designed to warn city dwellers of air raids during World War II, they were later used to warn of nuclear attack and natural disasters, such as tornadoes. The generalized nature of sirens led to many of them being replaced with more specific warnings, such as the broadcast-based Emergency Alert System and the Cell Broadcast-based Wireless Emergency Alerts and EU-Alert mobile technologies.
A mechanical siren generates sound by spinning a slotted chopper wheel to interrupt a stream of air at a regular rate. Modern sirens can develop a sound level of up to 135 decibels at 100 feet (30 m). The Chrysler air raid siren, driven by a 331-cubic-inch (5.4-liter) Chrysler Hemi gasoline engine, generates 138 dB at 100 feet (30 m).[2]
By use of varying tones or binary patterns of sound, different alert conditions can be called. Electronic sirens can transmit voice announcements in addition to alert tone signals. Siren systems may be electronically controlled and integrated into other warning systems.
Sirens are sometimes integrated into a warning system that links sirens with other warning media, such as the radio and TV Emergency Alert System, NOAA Weather Radio, telephone alerting systems, Reverse 911, Cable Override, and wireless alerting systems in the United States and the National Public Alerting System, Alert Ready, in Canada. This fluid approach enhances the credibility of warnings and reduces the risk of assumed false alarms by corroborating warning messages through multiple forms of media. The Common Alerting Protocol is a technical standard for this sort of multi-system integration.[3]
Siren installations have many ways of being activated. Commonly used methods are dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) or public switched telephone network (PSTN) using telephone lines, but activation can also be done via radio broadcast. This method opens up vulnerability for exploitation, but there are protections from false alarms. These sirens can also be tied into other networks such as a fire department's volunteer notification/paging system. The basics of this type of installation would consist of a device (possibly the same pager the firefighters have) connected to the controller/timer system of the siren. When a page is received, the siren is activated.[4]
A mechanical siren uses a rotor and stator to chop an air stream, which is forced through the siren by radial vanes in the spinning rotor. An example of this type of siren is the Federal Signal 2T22, which was originally developed during the Cold War and produced from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. This particular design employs dual rotors and stators to sound each pitch. Because the sound power output of this type of siren is the same in every direction at all times, it is described as omnidirectional. The Federal 2T22 was also marketed in a 3-signal configuration known as the Federal Signal 3T22, with the capability for a "hi-lo" (High-Low) signal.[5]
While some mechanical sirens produce sound in all directions simultaneously, other designs produce sound in only one direction, while employing a rotator mechanism to turn the siren head through 360 degrees of rotation. One rare type of mechanical siren, the Federal Signal RSH-10 ("Thunderbeam"), does not rotate or produce equal sound output in all directions. It instead uses a slowly rotating angled disc below the siren which directs the siren's output throughout 360 degrees.[6]
A variation of the electromechanical siren is a "supercharged" siren. A supercharged siren uses a separate source, usually a supercharger, which forces air into the rotor assembly of the siren. This increases the air pressure in the rotor assembly, causing the sound output of the siren to increase heavily, which in return increases the sound range by a large amount. The superchargers are generally driven by an electric motor, but in rare cases, can be driven by an engine. Federal Signal took advantage of this design and created their Thunderbolt Siren Series. Within the Thunderbolt product line, three different configurations were offered: the Thunderbolt 1000, a single-tone siren; the Thunderbolt 1000T, a dual-tone siren; and the Thunderbolt 1003, a variation of the 1000T that employs solenoid-actuated slide valves to create a "hi-lo" (High-Low) signal primarily used as a fire signal.
A very early model called the Thunderbolt 2000 was offered in both single tone and dual tone. The only notable difference between the Thunderbolt 2000 and later editions is that its blower is driven by an Onan two cylinder gasoline engine.[7] Another example of a siren that has a separate blower is the Alerting Communicators of America (ACA) Hurricane. One more example of a siren with a blower is the SoCal Edison Model 120, built specifically for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The SoCal Edison Model 120 is no longer standing out in public, as only one exists, and is owned privately.[8]
Another variation on the electromechanical siren is the pneumatic hochleistungssirene (HLS), first produced by the German firm Pintsch-Bamag and later by the German firm Hörmann. Soon afterward, Hörmann improved on the design to create the HLS 273, which did away with the massive siren head of the original in favor of a more compact head and cast aluminum exponential-profile horns. These sirens stored a reservoir of compressed air, recharged periodically by a diesel engine-driven compressor in a vault in the base of the massive siren unit. The later HLS 273 placed the large (6,000 liter) air tank underground beside the machinery vault, instead of in the mast itself as in the earlier HLS units.
Electronic sirens consist of an electronic tone generator, a high-power amplifier, and a horn loudspeaker. Typically, the loudspeaker unit incorporates horn loading, causing them to be similar in appearance to some electromechanical sirens. Many of these loudspeakers incorporate a vertical array of horns to achieve pattern control in the vertical plane. Each cell of the loudspeaker horn is driven by one or more compression drivers. One type of compression driver for this type of loudspeaker handles 400 watts of electrical power and uses two doughnut-shaped permanent magnet slugs to provide magnetic flux. For siren applications, high-fidelity sound is a secondary concern to high output, and siren drivers typically produce large amounts of distortion which would not be tolerable in an audio system where fidelity is important. Most newer (and some older) electronic sirens have the ability to store digital audio files. These audio files could be custom sounds, or emergency messages. Depending on the situation, the stored sound file can broadcast through the siren. These sirens could also come with a Microphone Jack to broadcast live messages via microphone.[9]
As with electromechanical sirens, there are both omnidirectional, directional, and rotating categories, though Whelen Engineering produces sirens which oscillate through 360 degrees, rotating in one direction and then in the other to allow a hard-wired connection between the amplifiers and the siren drivers. These sirens can also be set to rotate any amount from 0 to 360 degrees, allowing sirens to broadcast only in certain directions.[citation needed]
Electronic sirens may be mechanically rotated to cover a wide area, or may have transducers facing in all directions to make an omnidirectional pattern. A directional siren may be applied where notification is only required for a defined area in one direction.[citation needed]
Israel has more than 3,100 warning sirens. Most of the sirens in urban areas are German-made HLS sirens, models F71 and ECN3000. All the other sirens are HPSS32 models made by Acoustic Technologies (ATI). During the early 2010s, mechanical sirens were gradually phased out and replaced by electronic ones, although the mechanical ones were generally left standing. The air-raid sirens are called אזעקה (az'aka 'alarm'), and consist of a continuous ascending and descending tone. The "all clear" signal, called צפירת הרגעה (tzfirat harga'a), is a constant single-pitch sound. In recent conflicts, use of the "all clear" signal has been discontinued, as it was seen as causing unnecessary confusion and alarm. In certain regions in the south of Israel, which regularly undergo rocket attacks from Gaza, a specialized system called Red Color is used. 041b061a72