The Siren Board

Siren_Dude wrote:

josh555 wrote:Sorry to bump this very old post but I have info on this siren. My mom grew up in Sebeka, MN during 60s and 70s. She said the siren was used for fire calls (attack/wail) and a short blast at noon, 6pm and 10pm and tornado/severe weather (alert) and of course civil defense.

When I showed my mom a street view image of it, she kind of sort of recognized it but she said when she was growing up, it was on the water tower. That water tower has since been replaced, by a newer water tower so we guessed that it must have been moved from the old water tower to its current location. Me and my mom plan to contact the city about this siren.

Could you give the streetview link? I'd really like to see it, thanks!!

https://www.google.com/maps/@46.630581, ... NSshpw!2e0

Dang, that's a low siren.

Wow. Wouldn't want to be in that gas station with it sounding.

It does look dual-tone to me, but I'm not a very good judge of ports/ratios, so I'll leave that to someone who is. And judging by the apparent lack of any other sirens in town, it could very well be active...perhaps somebody will end up taking a shot at filming it.

I don't think this is a 95. It looks like it's just a regular old Model 5 that someone decided to customize a little. The chopper looks too big, and there's too many ports. There's even a video of a 95 in Wisconsin. You can see the differences in that video.

Bump. I forgot i had these photos that were taken last year. I have no idea what this siren is.
SEBEKA_SIREN_2 by Josh Tiffany, on Flickr

SEBEKA_SIREN_4 by Josh Tiffany, on Flickr

That appears to be a Decot siren.

If you look closely, you can see a top row of 16 ports and a bottom of 10 ports. So it's dual toned and stupidly low mounted.

Also, if it was ACA, where is the ACA control box and if it were ACA, it wouldn't be made of sheet steel either. It would be fibreglass.

It is a Decot Engineering Two-Tone siren.

This is a 2 horsepower Decot Engineering Works siren. It is smaller than the 3 horsepower (Monessan, PA) and 5 horsepower (Seattle, WA). The one brochure I've seen from this company goes back and forth calling it a 'Two Tone Siren' and simply a 'Decot Siren'. It is most likely 10-15 ports which was the standard sound for most of their sirens. Would have been built at their small factory in St. Paul, Minn. anywhere between 1943 to about 1950.

The shroud looks original and uses the top panel from what was also used for the 5 horsepower model's shroud top. Some of these sirens had a more proportionate top (Wessington Springs, SD had one like this in years past). Their shrouds were never fine art.

Decot Engineering Works was a small company orchestrated by John McGrath and Robert Fullerton. They meant well but just really didn't know how to successfully mass-produce and mass-market these sirens which was one of the reasons that led to their premature downfall. Sirens from Decot Engineering Works are very uncommon... here's the former factory site area: https://goo.gl/maps/pJPfmsakpSm

Interesting... didn't know that. Is it true that these are really as loud as a T-128 facing you? I see that all the time in youtube comments but that seems kind of unlikely. I wonder if this is still active. It isn't anywhere near me so I can't record it anytime soon.