"Lassie" to speak at Fire Prevention pancake break

[Robert Gift]

Our fire station is hosting a Fire Prevention pancake breakfast this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
This happens to be the first Saturday of the month when the siren is tested at Noon.
Lassie (officers' name for Federal Signal 2t22) may have quite an audience just 200 hundred feet away.
Hope that her 3-minute howl does not scare anyone.
I should make a warning sign to post at the pancake breakfast.

[Justin]

I should make a warning sign to post at the pancake breakfast.

Good idea.
Any chance of a video?

[Robert Gift]

Any chance of a video?

I'll try, again.
On the previous attempts, the tripod-mounted JVC 20GB HDD camcorder, 15 feet away from the siren, stopped recording as soon as the siren got loud!
Does overdriving the microphone cause this problem?
Or maybe the vibration from the sound causes the camcorder to stop.

The camcorder has a drop feature which parks the recording head off the disk.
When mounted to the Expedition dash, it will stop recording if we hit a bump or street surface which causes a vibration at a certain frequency.
Driving normally, no problem recording. Driving emergent, it sometimes stops from road surface vibration at higher speeds.
Frustrating.

[JasonC]

Any chance of a video?

I'll try, again.
On the previous attempts, the tripod-mounted JVC 20GB HDD camcorder, 15 feet away from the siren, stopped recording as soon as the siren got loud!
Does overdriving the microphone cause this problem?
Or maybe the vibration from the sound causes the camcorder to stop.

The camcorder has a drop feature which parks the recording head off the disk.
When mounted to the Expedition dash, it will stop recording if we hit a bump or street surface which causes a vibration at a certain frequency.
Driving normally, no problem recording. Driving emergent, it sometimes stops from road surface vibration at higher speeds.
Frustrating.

Record the siren from several hundred feet away, 15 feet is to close!

[Robert Gift]

Record the siren from several hundred feet away, 15 feet is to close!

Yes.
This time I am planning to record from a greater distance using telephoto.
Before, I was cramped within the confines of the sewage treatment plant.
I wanted to photo the siren from a southwest angle where the sun would best show the naked stator.
Thanks

[Robert Gift]

...Record the siren from several hundred feet away, 15 feet is to close!

It worked!
I was able to get a good enough angle. Put the screen rartio from 16/9 to 4/3.
Now must figure how to get the video into this Dell laptop computer and then posted on You-tube.

[Justin]

...Record the siren from several hundred feet away, 15 feet is to close!

It worked!
I was able to get a good enough angle. Put the screen rartio from 16/9 to 4/3.
Now must figure how to get the video into this Dell laptop computer and then posted on You-tube.

You'll most likely need a Firewire (IEEE1394) cable and connectors on both the camera and laptop to be able to 'capture' the video. This depends on the camera. A make and model number would be useful here.

If you've got Windows XP or Windows Vista, both include Windows Movie Maker which is a really basic linear (am I correct here?) video editing application which will allow you to capture the video, manipulate it and render it into a format that we can all view.

PM me if you need any more help.

[Robert Gift]

Thanks, Justin.
I'll work on that.
Once I have aquired the items and knowledge, I get some stuff up.

[cauberallies]

If you were anywhere near Altoona, PA, I would come help you out. I run a recording studio, and have all the necessary gear to make awesome siren recordings. Problem is, none of the VFDs in the area have scheduled test times AFAIK.

[Robert Gift]

If you were anywhere near Altoona, PA, I would come help you out. I run a recording studio, and have all the necessary gear to make awesome siren recordings. Problem is, none of the VFDs in the area have scheduled test times AFAIK.

Thanks, caube. That is kind of you.
Can you record the curfew at Lewistown, PA.
It was a most strange, fascinating and scary sound I recall as a child in the late 1950s.
I'm told it still sounds at 21:30.

I can't imagine the VFDs not having consistant siren test times.
Maybe they do not test because they do not need to test.

Living in the North Hills (McCandless Township) 11 miles north of Pittsburgh, I used to hear a fascinating "springy" sound at precisely 11 a.m. (or was it Noon?)
It sounded as though it was very distant but very powerful to travel that distance - as though from downtown Pittsburg. I used to wonder if it were a tugboat, but seemed much too powerful for a tugboat horn to travel 11 miles. Now I wish I could have recorded it.