House Sirens/Whistles

[x129K 1,393]

What about that nutty paramedic from Empress that has one in his basement????? Show'ed it to me once.....fired it up and the house went dark!

Who loves ya Billy???????

[shadow12083 17]

Esopus still uses its siren and it goes off for all calls at any time of day, and sounds off at Noon everyday plus a test that is done on Wednesday evening around 7PM usually.

It is actually kind of nice to have, because if I am outside doing something and don't have my pager or in many cases I barley get enough single for the pager, so listening for the siren is a quick way for me to know for sure if something is going on.

Edited March 15, 2008 by shadow12083

[scopino 0]

Pleasantville uses it 24/7 my opinion is leave em running, whats wrong with a second notification, there have been many times when Im cutting grass using the blower and dont hear the pager go off, but I can hear the horns 5x major 3x minor. For the people in the village that are against them, I bet they wouldn't mind it if there was a fire at their house

[Guest]

Despite being old technology, sirens can still play a useful role for department notification, especially for volunteer and combination departments. You need to have a secondary means of notification per NFPA (and common sense) and sirens fit the bill. Interestingly, if you are going through an ISO review, some of the new technologies are not counted as secondary means of notification. For example, you can send out a text message, but that is not counted because the receipt of the text message could be delayed. There are several alternative notification methods that work well if you have staff in the firehouse, but the choices become very limited when there is no staff in quarters to receive an alarm. So, the fire horn or siren becomes important.

[Bnechis 3,961]

Curious whether anyone has the specifics to cite for nfpa or iso - this is one of the newly implemented EMT Bravo policies (reduce the urban myths).

ISO requires 1 "alarm dispatch circut" if your dept. recieves <600 calls/year and 2 if >600.

The horn, pagers, house alarm or PA (for staffed FH), plectrons, tec. each count as 1.

If you are using pagers and do 600+ alarms you need a 2nd way to alert members. This is based on NFPA 1221.

[Guest]

Here is a good web site about Gamewell Diaphones (The Horn)

http://www.gamewelldiaphone.com/main.php

Go down the left side to SOUNDS & VIDEO

[JBE 328]

AHHHH The one that sounds like a cow being slaughtered!!!

[Stench60 29]

This is from the ISO website ( I'll take the spanking if I'm remiss in posting this copy)

" Fire alarms

Ten percent of the overall grading is based on how well the fire department receives fire alarms and dispatches its fire-fighting resources. Our field representatives evaluate the communications center, looking at the number of operators at the center; the telephone service, including the number of telephone lines coming into the center; and the listing of emergency numbers in the telephone book. Field representatives also look at the dispatch circuits and how the center notifies firefighters about the location of the emergency."

The major blackouts we had were only one example of the need for a secondary means of informing the members of an alarm, remember in this day and age it only takes one knucklehead to cut a single pair of telephone lines and you could well end up losing your "modern" communication abilities. In this day and age of "being prepared for everything" it can't hurt to have a horn or whistle as a backup.

Hudson ............. 8am whistle..... time to leave for school

[Jared1979 19]

I live near West Harrison and North White Plains fire districts and their sirens do not bother me at all. At least people know whats going when they go off.

[ENG47INE 17]

Dobbs Ferry has one on top of each station and it blows for Fire and Ambulance for all calls. It has certain hours though can't remeber them off the top of my head but after hours it will only blow if it's a general alarm.

[mikelouf2 0]

Just out of curiosity, what happened to the siren that Lake Carmel had??

I think it’s on the side of the new fire house they never hooked it up when they removed it from the old fire

house. I don't think they are going to hook it up again.

Edited March 16, 2008 by DOC22
UNACCEPTABLE USE OF CAPS

[Guest]

My vol. organization (Belltown FD in Stamford) still has a functioning horn. I believe they still test it at 4:00 PM as has been tradition since I was a little kid growing up near the station and long before that. Frankly, I cannot see the significance of holding on to the horn when we are in an age of such sophisticated communications equipment. I know, I know, it can fail...Other than a civil emergency, when is it's use warranted? Most volunteers work during the day outside of the district and wouldn't hear it anyway. But...I can't argue with tradition even though its annoying.

JVC

I can't argue with the fact that the horn at Belltown was recently activated upon notification of a possible structure fire, and it was that horn blast that alerted a member that otherwise would not have known.

Isn't it funny that "in an age of such sophisticated communications equipment" , Belltown sought a backup because there are times the dispatch center forgets to call the volunteers

[ex-commish 490]

ISO requires 1 "alarm dispatch circut" if your dept. recieves <600 calls/year and 2 if >600.

The horn, pagers, house alarm or PA (for staffed FH), plectrons, tec. each count as 1.

If you are using pagers and do 600+ alarms you need a 2nd way to alert members. This is based on NFPA 1221.

Are EMS runs included in the 600 runs?

[Bnechis 3,961]

Are EMS runs included in the 600 runs?

The standard does not say, but since it only totals call volume, if the FD is doing the EMS work I'd say yes

Edited March 16, 2008 by Bnechis

[Oswegowind 17]

There was a time when Peekskill had horns...that was an awful long time ago! Maybe early 80's something went wrong and that was that!

I am not against this, I like the Buchanan's sounds everyday at noon and Montrose at 5, and maybe Verplanck at 6. I don't wear a watch so this keeps me in tune with the time!

[MoFire390 118]

We use our siren here 24/7 and every day at 5pm or now a days 6pm (because of the time change) except on sundays.

[Oswegowind 17]

We use our siren here 24/7 and every day at 5pm or now a days 6pm (because of the time change) except on sundays.

What dept? Peekskill????

[x242Steve 1]

I know Rye used to have a horn system that also was a pa system for evacuations. When they rebuilt HQ was it eliminated or was it reinstalled?

The horns are still installed at both firehouses, but are only hooked up to a momentary switch for manual activation.

Before the renovation there was still a Gamewell-type system with a ticker-tape at both firehouses and a control box at HQ. You could dial in the box number and number of rounds. For example the Osborn Retirement Community is Box 315, so the horn would blast 3 times, pause, 1 time, pause, 5 times, longer pause, repeat the cycle twice more. Before Rye switched to 60-Control for dispatch, the Career Firefighter assigned to the Ladder would dispatch the alarm and set off the horns while he waited for a tillerman. The horn was tested every morning at 0800, and Saturday at Noon.