The Siren Board

I was originally planning to try to get a recording of siren #19 today since it is the last Thunderbolt, but the weather wasn't looking that great, so I decided to call the Cobb county EMA to see if they would be testing today. Sadly the test was cancelled, but the Cobb county EOC told me that I could come and see how they set the sirens off if I wanted to. She started showing me the software that they use to control the system, but when she started showing me the status of the sirens, I noticed that all of the boxes for siren #19 were red. I asked what that meant, and she said that they are replacing it with a Vortex soon, because it started smoking during the last test and they had to disconnect power from it. While I knew this was going to happen sometime soon since this was the last Thunderbolt and the rotator has been broken for a while, what really surprised me was that they are also replacing siren #5 because the battery charger is acting up. This surprised me since it is a 2001 that is fine, except for the charger. Originally, I thought that they wanted to replace all of the Thunderbolts, but it looks like they also want to replace any siren that isn't a Whelen.

I suppose it's dramatically fitting that the DeKalb Thunderbolt heritage would go out with a bang... It's a shame #19 bit the dust though. I was hoping to catch a video of it someday.

As for the 2001...I definitely suspect that's a big excuse to convert the system to 100% Whelen. I can actually see why - a Vortex and an SRN are completely different animals, after all, so it saves them a lot of hassle to have everything be uniformly electronic.

Shame about that, I was hoping to get out to #19 one last time before it was gone. I was even supposed to go last month but had something come up last-minute.

Interesting about your welcome at the EOC; I had tried talking to them last year or thereabouts and they wouldn't even give me the time of day. Maybe there's some new leadership!

VASirens wrote:I suppose it's dramatically fitting that the DeKalb Thunderbolt heritage would go out with a bang... It's a shame #19 bit the dust though. I was hoping to catch a video of it someday.

As for the 2001...I definitely suspect that's a big excuse to convert the system to 100% Whelen. I can actually see why - a Vortex and an SRN are completely different animals, after all, so it saves them a lot of hassle to have everything be uniformly electronic.

I have tried to get a video of the thunderbolts about 5 times, but every time, it either started raining or I was too late. I was really thinking that #19 would stay up a while since it seemed healthy and McCord Communications closed, however McCord was recently bought by another company called Allcomm that took over all of the sirens McCord used to service. I guess I will have to catch one of the tests in Jonesboro or Upson county if I want to see a Thunderbolt in Georgia from now on.

Scoth wrote:Shame about that, I was hoping to get out to #19 one last time before it was gone. I was even supposed to go last month but had something come up last-minute.

You didn't miss anything last month, it failed during the May test. By June, the utilities were already cut.

At least whelen is a good siren company.

Me and Will T. went out to 19 today. It's dead as a hammer. We got video of it sitting while the whelens went off, and I called the EMA and reported it. The lady thanked me for the report and said that later today (as I type this) a work crew would be dispatched to look at the siren. As a joke, me and Will named our siren partnership the Atlanta Branch of the Siren Failure Unit. Me and will got what may very well be the last pictures of 19 still being a Thunderbolt. Here they are:








(Note the loose wire hanging on the antenna)






In addition, we saw 3 of Smyrna's sirens, however I do not feel they are remotely related to #19, so I will not post them.

What kind of control system do they use? All Whelen? Are the tbolts and 2001s ran with Whelen controllers?

It's some kind of Motorola activation system. All of their sirens have little boxes on them that contain remote terminal units. The RTUs control the sirens' controllers or, in the case of the Thunderbolts and 2001s, serve as a controller. They communicate with FSK. We just updated to this system during the last few weeks of December last year.

While I hate to bump my own topic from over the summer, I recently found some time to see siren #19. Sure enough, it has been replaced with a shiny new Whelen Vortex. I did not have time to see #5, but considering the fact that a crew came to replace #19, #5 most likely met this same fate. Here are the pictures that I was able to get of the new installation:

Siren head Cobb County siren ID plate Control panel Serial number on new pole Underside of the siren head Siren head on a new pole Disconnected three-phase power lines that ran to the Thunderbolt I will hopefully be able to see #5 soon, and possibly catch a test of one of the remaining 2001's before the rest of them meet the same fate. That's all for now .

Sorry for the MASSIVE bump but what exactly was wrong with siren #19/what would cause a Thunderbolt or any other siren to start smoking?