The Siren Board

Today I took a drive out to Waitsburg, north of Walla Walla, in southeastern Washington. First I found this Sterling, a fairly common siren in the Pacific Northwest.

Coming around the corner to the City Hall, I saw these two enormous horns. The gentleman at the hardware/antique store/cat shelter across the street said that they are still in use by the fire department and are tested daily, and are air horns and not speakers. I will definitely come again to record them with a better camera. Does anyone know what they are?

Too big to be a Diaphone, Interesting, They kind of look like like train horns, but that's probably not it.

They look like toa speakers to me.

Here is one like it in a fire museum back east.

Notice how the horn diverges into two channels at the very back; there's gotta be compression drivers as the end of it. As for the outdoor horns, kinda hard to tell. Would be interesting to find out, tho.

I drove up there today and looked a little closer. They appear to be speakers and not air horns, but I did record that Sterling sounding at noon. See the video forum to hear it.

Don't know how active this thread still is, but the horns atop city hall are speakers that are used for downtown gatherings/parades etc. I would suggest going to Hometown Christmas (first weekend in December) or Waitsburg Days Parade (formerly Days of Real Sport) to hear them "in action." General parade announcing is probably their sole use any more. Though I'm probably forgetting something.

The sterling siren sounds off weekdays at noon +/- 5-10 minutes. We used to time when to return to school after lunch based on the noon whistle, but after time changes that could get sketchy because the school clocks and the town hall clock weren't necessarily aligned.