Siren Photos

[500AT]

Were a 2001 DC and a STH-10 stolen? Were they in an easily accessed location?

It's my understanding that both of these sirens were pole mounted. Apparently, the criminals cut the poles and leaned the sirens over with a rope, then took the main units, by cutting the top of the poles off. Also, the control boxes to the 2001-DC were also taken.

The RSH-10 in Detroit was also pole mounted, but located at park or a school playground. Nobody noticed that the siren was missing until the city did their annual siren survey. Personally, I think each siren site should be checked monthly, just to make sure its fully operational.

[SirenMadness]

Great pictures!

Man, the oldie sirens looked fantastic back then!

[Daniel]

I believe that the downtown Belleville siren is either a GCS or a Darley. Darleys were usually shaped like Federals only with rounded tops, while GCS had a top cap of a smaller diameter than the center louvre. It's hard to tell, since Darley had so many housing designs.

Is this the same Belleville where the triplets subsist on a diet of frogs? (If you haven't seen the excellent animated film, The Triplets of Belleville, never mind).

[500AT]

I believe that the downtown Belleville siren is either a GCS or a Darley. Darleys were usually shaped like Federals only with rounded tops, while GCS had a top cap of a smaller diameter than the center louvre. It's hard to tell, since Darley had so many housing designs.

I have seen the Noon time clock, timer, motor control, pushbuttons, and they all indicated "Sterling Fire Alarm Company, Rochester, NY." The timer required a start-stop button to run the siren for fire calls, as it would continuously cycle itself until the stop button was pushed. Likewise, they had a manual button that was used in later years to run the siren for tornado alerts.

According to the fire chief back then, the controls came with the siren when it was installed in 1947. Likewise, it has a very nice low-tone, as the neighboring township had high-pitch sirens. This made it easy to tell what fire dept. had a call back then.