The Siren Board

Toshiba makes good stuff. I clearly remember their TV's and HDTV's hardly ever coming back to Circuit City as their failure rate was quite low. Same with their laptops. I wouldn't trust an HP, Compaq or Dell as far as I could throw them but Toshiba is one of the companies that does it right. Acer is also a great company thats highly under-rated...which is now the parent company of eMachines and Gateway. Not to get off topic.

MattDean1003 wrote:Toshiba makes good stuff. I clearly remember their TV's and HDTV's hardly ever coming back to Circuit City as their failure rate was quite low. Same with their laptops. I wouldn't trust an HP, Compaq or Dell as far as I could throw them but Toshiba is one of the companies that does it right. Acer is also a great company thats highly under-rated...which is now the parent company of eMachines and Gateway. Not to get off topic.

I actually have dropped my Toshiba Satellite a few times but it works awesome

weasel2htm wrote:

TboltTX1 wrote: I'm wondering how they even got the name toshiba? It's a shame no one has any recordings or videos of them activating.

If I understand right, the Toshiba siren was built by the same Toshiba that makes electronics.

No, I mean if the siren was designed and made by an engineer from SONGS and not the company toshiba, how did it get the name?

TboltTX1 wrote:

weasel2htm wrote:

TboltTX1 wrote: I'm wondering how they even got the name toshiba? It's a shame no one has any recordings or videos of them activating.

If I understand right, the Toshiba siren was built by the same Toshiba that makes electronics.

No, I mean if the siren was designed and made by an engineer from SONGS and not the company toshiba, how did it get the name?

Someone on this board said that they were made by Toshiba, and everyone started calling them Toshiba sirens, but there was a post several years ago about the patent for these sirens. I remember something about them having four-port rotors with a Teflon coating for closer tolerances, and a valve that did not admit air into the rotor until it was up to speed.

As doubtful as I am, I sure hope at least one is in good hands somewhere!

Old thread, but:

Based on my research into the patent, the 'Toshiba' siren used by Southern California Edison for the San Onofre power station could not produce sound at any meaningful level without a secondary air source. The siren head itself was only a rotary valve, with the aforementioned Teflon seals at the valve openings, and there were no rotating vanes in the siren head to generate air pressure.

If these sirens ever functioned properly, it was with an external blower or air compressor. A blower seems more likely to me. A pneumatic siren would require much more frequent maintenance to drain water from the air tank, and to change the oil in the compressor.

I think it's curious that the designer of the siren lived in Northridge, CA - home to Altec Lansing and JBL, which manufactured horn-loaded loudspeakers. I would think that same talent pool might have been tapped to design this siren.

So that rotary valve essentially created the "chop" effect in each horn by alternating the position of its one orifice, or did the valve have one orifice per horn? If the later, that would have probably made it a cylindrical chopper much akin to that of a later HLS.

If you watch the 1956 Japanese Kaiju classic "Rodan," Toho Productions uses Toshiba sirens in the soundtrack. In one scene you can see a close-up of the siren as the creature flies over Sasebo-shi. In this trailer for the movie, you can hear the siren at the 0:29 mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fONQK87h1X0

Daniel wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 23, 2011 4:28 am

TboltTX1 wrote:

weasel2htm wrote:

If I understand right, the Toshiba siren was built by the same Toshiba that makes electronics.

No, I mean if the siren was designed and made by an engineer from SONGS and not the company toshiba, how did it get the name?

Someone on this board said that they were made by Toshiba, and everyone started calling them Toshiba sirens, but there was a post several years ago about the patent for these sirens. I remember something about them having four-port rotors with a Teflon coating for closer tolerances, and a valve that did not admit air into the rotor until it was up to speed.

Here's the patent for the Toshiba/Mystery octagon siren if anyone is curious. https://www.google.com/patents/US480720 ... hDoAQhIMAU

So basically, from what I can gather, it is a Japanese/American take on the Hoermann F71 / HLS series?