Fire Alarm Street boxes

[spin_the_wheel 460]

Any Westchester Dept have any in service? Hartsdale had a few left a few years back am I right?

[wraftery 1,275]

Hartsdale still has them, and very few falses from them...not like the old days.

[PFDRes47cue 653]

Any other departments? Does anyone know the number of alarms transmitted each year by the street boxes?

Pleasantville has a box on the front of the Washington Avenue firehouse...it works but has not been used in at least the last 5 years.

[Medic5274 45]

Any other departments? Does anyone know the number of alarms transmitted each year by the street boxes?

Pleasantville has a box on the front of the Washington Avenue firehouse...it works but has not been used in at least the last 5 years.

Back in 2000 Dobbs Ferry removed the 24 street boxes they had. The decision was based on useage and maintenance costs. Before pulling the boxes we did a study and went back 5 years. In that time period there were over 1600 fire responses in the Village. Out of the over 1600 calls 37 were from street boxes. 35 of them were malicious false alarms the other 2 were pulled after the FD had already been notified via landlines and cell phone calls. Both were for car fires. We also spoke with several municipalities in the County who also had boxes and asked about their experiences. With the explosion in the use of cell phones the boxes were becoming obsolete. There has been no impact on service devlivery. The boxes were just not being utilized by the public. Mainitaining the aging system was becoming more problematic and costly and posed a serious liability issue on the village in the event one of the boxes did not operate properly.

[PFDRes47cue 653]

Back in 2000 Dobbs Ferry removed the 24 street boxes they had. The decision was based on useage and maintenance costs. Before pulling the boxes we did a study and went back 5 years. In that time period there were over 1600 fire responses in the Village. Out of the over 1600 calls 37 were from street boxes. 35 of them were malicious false alarms the other 2 were pulled after the FD had already been notified via landlines and cell phone calls. Both were for car fires. We also spoke with several municipalities in the County who also had boxes and asked about their experiences. With the explosion in the use of cell phones the boxes were becoming obsolete. There has been no impact on service devlivery. The boxes were just not being utilized by the public. Mainitaining the aging system was becoming more problematic and costly and posed a serious liability issue on the village in the event one of the boxes did not operate properly.

Interesting. It definitely makes sense to get rid of them. A similar thread already exists. Thread

On college campus across the country, there are the "blue stations" that have a direct connect to campus or town/city police. Are these worth maintaining? I would think the liability would be similar, if it were to malfunction.

[Medic5274 45]

We had several addresses in the Village hooked into the municipal system such as college dorms, a hospital a nursing home and municipal buildings. These locations were removed from the system at the same time. All of addresses were contracting with an alarm monitoring company for their burglar alarm system so adding a fire alarm capability to the system was very easy for them to do. The fire department is just that a fire department. We are not an alarm company. By allowing addresses to hook into your municipal alarm system you are assuming all liabiilty for the operation of the system. We were also assuming all costs for mainitianing the system which was not right when you are dealing with profit making entities.

[JM15 386]

Interesting. It definitely makes sense to get rid of them. A similar thread already exists. Thread

On college campus across the country, there are the "blue stations" that have a direct connect to campus or town/city police. Are these worth maintaining? I would think the liability would be similar, if it were to malfunction.

THose "blue boxes" on college campus's are usually more for protection against violent crime.... young women walking at night.

[JohnnyOV 2]

On college campus across the country, there are the "blue stations" that have a direct connect to campus or town/city police. Are these worth maintaining? I would think the liability would be similar, if it were to malfunction.

I know when I attended college, the emergency phones were tested and maintained weekly by the Security guys.

They actually played a critical role in a cardiac arrest of one of the students at my school, as the student collapsed right next to the blue phone in a parking lot after a ROTC run. The dispatchers were able to communicate with other students via the speaker phone on CPR instructions and had an exact location of the incident for responding EMS units. Unfortunately the student passed away, but response was immediate, and CPR with an AED was given the moment the student hit the ground.

The phone on campus also provide a sense of security for student who might be scared to walk the campus at night alone. At every point on campus, you should be able to see the glow of the blue light. Once the phone is activated, a blue strobe starts to flash indicating to surrounding people that something is occurring at that location.

[PFDRes47cue 653]

THose "blue boxes" on college campus's are usually more for protection against violent crime.... young women walking at night.

Yes, I know they are to protect against violent crimes. I meant that they have the same basic purpose. Street boxes are for reporting fire related events and "blue boxes" are for reporting violent crimes to hopefully alert law enforcement before the crimes happen. But, say this box malfunctions like a street box and a young lady becomes victim to a violent crime. She had a cell phone but saw the "blue box" and used it to connect with the police but the box did not work. The school that is in charge of the boxes is responsible, right?

I often hear of police departments responding to false calls that have come in through these "blue boxes." Or people push the button and get connected with the police but then walk away, leaving the dispatcher on the line with silence.

So for the school, knowing that practically everyone has a cell phone and can dial 911 or the campus police number, is are the blue boxes worth maintaining? I would think no, but there sees to be more and more of these being placed on campuses.

[M' Ave 1,466]

Back in 2000 Dobbs Ferry removed the 24 street boxes they had. The decision was based on useage and maintenance costs. Before pulling the boxes we did a study and went back 5 years. In that time period there were over 1600 fire responses in the Village. Out of the over 1600 calls 37 were from street boxes. 35 of them were malicious false alarms the other 2 were pulled after the FD had already been notified via landlines and cell phone calls. Both were for car fires. We also spoke with several municipalities in the County who also had boxes and asked about their experiences. With the explosion in the use of cell phones the boxes were becoming obsolete. There has been no impact on service devlivery. The boxes were just not being utilized by the public. Mainitaining the aging system was becoming more problematic and costly and posed a serious liability issue on the village in the event one of the boxes did not operate properly.

The street pull-box has not become obsolete. Not one bit. Unless you can show me a fool-proof, never fail method of reporting an emergency, there will be a place for the street pull box. Oh, remember that this device has to be available to everyone. How many people don't have cell-phones, or home phones? Not many in Dobbs Ferry, but in some inner-city neighborhoods, there are still some without.

How about a child? That same group of kids who maliciously pulls the box after school might actually have an emergency to report and no phone.

How about a catastrophic event? I don't know about you, but on 9/11 or the 2003 black-out, I couldn't make a phone call on my cell for hours.

Dispatch has taken steps to reduce malicious false alarms. Almost all pull-type boxes have been replaced with an intercom style. The person pushes a button and speaks with a dispatcher. Between the hours of 7am and 11pm, if no contact is received by the dispatcher, no units respond. If a "no-contact" box is received after 11pm, one single engine responds to investigate.

It doesn't happen often, but I have responded to more than one "ERS" (intercom pull-box) alarm that turned out to be an all hands fire. While the alarm was phoned in as well, it was the ERS report that had us out the door 30 seconds earlier.

The street alarm box still has a functional place in many areas. Cost? It is an almost invisible line item on this city's budget. It is a small price to pay for a tried and true system. This is a great example of positive redundancy.

Lastly, in light of the recently introduced "UCT 911" system and it's many shortcomings and failures, it's nice to know that there is still as system out there that will put the public in direct contact with Fire or Police dispatchers and not some low-rent, ineffectively trained call-taker.

Edited February 16, 2011 by M' Ave

[Medic5274 45]

The street pull-box has not become obsolete. Not one bit. Unless you can show me a fool-proof, never fail method of reporting an emergency, there will be a place for the street pull box. Oh, remember that this device has to be available to everyone. How many people don't have cell-phones, or home phones? Not many in Dobbs Ferry, but in some inner-city neighborhoods, there are still some without.

How about a child? That same group of kids who maliciously pulls the box after school might actually have an emergency to report and no phone.

How about a catastrophic event? I don't know about you, but on 9/11 or the 2003 black-out, I couldn't make a phone call on my cell for hours.

Dispatch has taken steps to reduce malicious false alarms. Almost all pull-type boxes have been replaced with an intercom style. The person pushes a button and speaks with a dispatcher. Between the hours of 7am and 11pm, if no contact is received by the dispatcher, no units respond. If a "no-contact" box is received after 11pm, one single engine responds to investigate.

It doesn't happen often, but I have responded to more than one "ERS" (intercom pull-box) alarm that turned out to be an all hands fire. While the alarm was phoned in as well, it was the ERS report that had us out the door 30 seconds earlier.

The street alarm box still has a functional place in many areas. Cost? It is an almost invisible line item on this city's budget. It is a small price to pay for a tried and true system. This is a great example of positive redundancy.

Lastly, in light of the recently introduced "UCT 911" system and it's many shortcomings and failures, it's nice to know that there is still as system out there that will put the public in direct contact with Fire or Police dispatchers and not some low-rent, ineffectively trained call-taker.

M Ave you are correct that in some areas the boxes do provide a neccessary communication system but that was not the case in my scenario. We carefully looked at the number of times they were utilized and were comfortable with removing them, again in the scenario of Dobbs Ferry.

The boxes that were pulled did not provide voice contact to a dispatcher. They were hooked into the municipal alarm system and would activate the village fire horn and tap out the corresponding box number. The police officer manning the desk would have to count the number of blows on the horn to detrmine the location of the box alarm. He would them activate the plectron pager system advising the location of the call. For us it really came down to a liability and maintenance issue. The system was hard wired and was thus very suseptible to wind and tree limb damage. We often were unaware of box outages that were very often difficult to identify without actually sounding all the boxes. This left us holding the liability in case of system failure. We did not remove the boxes without research and felt comfortable with removing them based on the little actual use they recieved over the years. We were never able to identify a call through a pull box that we had not already been notified of via landline or cell phone. We only had 24 boxes so the vast majority of the Village was not covered by the boxes and we never had a notification problem from those locations. For us the system became obsolete.

As for costs, in my municipality my department is scraping by on a miniscule budget so every dollar counts. It is a shame when dollar costs get involved in public safety initiatives but it is the reality of the world today.

In some other localities there may still be a benefit and need but others can get by without them.

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

Interesting. It definitely makes sense to get rid of them. A similar thread already exists. Thread

On college campus across the country, there are the "blue stations" that have a direct connect to campus or town/city police. Are these worth maintaining? I would think the liability would be similar, if it were to malfunction.

Federal Law requires all institutions of higher learning to release an annual report on violent/sexual crime on campus/the surrounding area. These reports are public information. While the blue lights you see on campus are not mandated by law, in essence, they provide a certain level of security to those men and women walking alone at night knowing everywhere they turn on campus they will be able to see at least one blue light.

The cost to maintain them annually is certainly much less than the loss of revenue generate when students leave a campus because it is no longer safe.

[efdcapt115 1,511]

I'm going to agree with M on the necessity of maintaining the pull box system for inner city areas. Like Dennis Smith wrote about; if somebody pulls a box they KNOW a fire engine is coming. Sure it's a different system now, ERS, push to talk, take a look at JBE's profile photo to see one.

We had a pull box system in the Eastchester Fire District. It connected three school systems, a college, a hospital, public buildings, private schools, and public streets directly to every firehouse. Inside each house had a reel-to-reel tape at the watch desk, and bells on the wall of the apparatus floor, and whistles on the roofs. The tapes and bells were spring loaded, and had to be wound at the start of every day tour. As soon as a box was pulled, it would activate four rounds of the box number through all five houses and simultaneously activate all five fire whistles.

The schools, hospital, public buildings all had box numbers like 83..or 881. You had to hear all five whistles going in the district at the same time to believe it. Back in the day, this was the only way to notify the volunteers...they would count the number of blasts on the whistle to figure out the location of the alarm. There was a pocket-sized box location reference guide; I think there were at least a couple hundred boxes in the district.

Back in the day, the Alarm Bureau was staffed with one or two career guys. The district eventually put the maintenance of the system under the purview of the department mechanic. The system was pretty durable, but over the decades the underground cables connecting it all needed more and more maintenance/replacement.

The general public was getting pretty fed up with the incredibly loud whistles that would go off at all hours, so the department installed kill switches for them, and we began shutting them down at 2300 hrs every night.

The invention of the Plectron probably had the most impact on smaller municipal alarm box systems like ours. With the volunteers now getting toned out, the days of the fire whistle were rapidly coming to an end.

And that day did come, with a Resolution by the Board of Fire Commissioners, they pulled the plug on the pull box system, and another part of fire department history went the way of the horse drawn steamer.

The 1800 hr system test was for decades, the way by which many a resident would set their pocket-watch....pulling it out using the fob, double checking the time and then catching the trolley car for a ride home. Career firemen in Eastchester were required to come and go from work in their Class A uniforms. They could ride the trolley for a nickel, but they were not allowed to smoke while wearing their Class A's.

So they did away with the pull boxes, they did away with the whistles, eventually firemen didn't have to wear their Class A's to work anymore.....and the trolley cars came to a halt....they paved asphalt over the tracks at some point. But through it all some things endured the test of time; the design of the New Yorker...and the Halligan Tool!

[wraftery 1,275]

Good dissertation, Cap. Might I add a like more about the Gamewell Telegraph Syatem?

The 3-fold box came into widespread use in the early 1900s, and if installed correctly (most are not) it is almost foolproof The 3 folds are Non-interfering, Sequential, and Ground return. It is meant to operate with the boxes on a single wire loop, but unfortunately many places have installed them on a feed loop and a home run which can defeat the features that make the system fail safe. Non-interfering means that if one box is transmitting it has control of the system. A second pulled box will not be able to join in and give wrong bells. Sequential means that if several boxes are pulled, one will wait for the prior box to finish before it transmits. Ground return means that if a wire is broken, the system will rely on the one good incoming wire ant transmit using the ground (earth)as its second wire. If a tree limb falls and breaks the wire on single loop, gorund return will work, but if two wires are broken, it defeats the ground return feature.

If many boxes are pulled at once a box will keep waiting its turn to transmit, until its mainspring is almost wound down, in which case, it will take over the system from the other boxes and transmit its box number on its final breath, so to speak. Remember, this was early 1900's and all this was accomolished by a series of gears, contacts, coils, and springs. The system is actually digital because the whole thing operates on a series of "if...then" tests and line open...closed.

The system was also a two-way system. Let's say the Chief arrives at Box 271 in his buggy, and wants to sound a Second alarm. Remember there is no radio and phones are only for the rich. Let's say the bell signal for a senond alarm is 2-2. The Chief would open the box and on the telegraph key inside he would tap out 2-2 271.

Most of you have not worked in a place with a municipal system, but it is still the fastest response time of any other system, even the systems today using CAD,etc.

(Vols systems were slow because the system had to be timed slow for the whistle to operate) All hands would start counting the bells as soon as the box started coming in. No matter how big or small your city was, by the second digit you knew if you were 1st due, 2nd due, not assigned, etc.

Old guys like me are like Pavlov's dog. Start ringing bells at the proper timing, ,and we start counting.

Edited February 16, 2011 by wraftery

[spin_the_wheel 460]

Interesting. It definitely makes sense to get rid of them. A similar thread already exists. Thread

On college campus across the country, there are the "blue stations" that have a direct connect to campus or town/city police. Are these worth maintaining? I would think the liability would be similar, if it were to malfunction.

I started that thread as well years back..I actually found it as I was going to post again on i to see if anyone else had taken them out, but thread was closed due to being to old!!!!

[spin_the_wheel 460]

Good dissertation, Cap. Might I add a like more about the Gamewell Telegraph Syatem?

The 3-fold box came into widespread use in the early 1900s, and if installed correctly (most are not) it is almost foolproof The 3 folds are Non-interfering, Sequential, and Ground return. It is meant to operate with the boxes on a single wire loop, but unfortunately many places have installed them on a feed loop and a home run which can defeat the features that make the system fail safe. Non-interfering means that if one box is transmitting it has control of the system. A second pulled box will not be able to join in and give wrong bells. Sequential means that if several boxes are pulled, one will wait for the prior box to finish before it transmits. Ground return means that if a wire is broken, the system will rely on the one good incoming wire ant transmit using the ground (earth)as its second wire. If a tree limb falls and breaks the wire on single loop, gorund return will work, but if two wires are broken, it defeats the ground return feature.

If many boxes are pulled at once a box will keep waiting its turn to transmit, until its mainspring is almost wound down, in which case, it will take over the system from the other boxes and transmit its box number on its final breath, so to speak. Remember, this was early 1900's and all this was accomolished by a series of gears, contacts, coils, and springs. The system is actually digital because the whole thing operates on a series of "if...then" tests and line open...closed.

The system was also a two-way system. Let's say the Chief arrives at Box 271 in his buggy, and wants to sound a Second alarm. Remember there is no radio and phones are only for the rich. Let's say the bell signal for a senond alarm is 2-2. The Chief would open the box and on the telegraph key inside he would tap out 2-2 271.

Most of you have not worked in a place with a municipal system, but it is still the fastest response time of any other system, even the systems today using CAD,etc.

(Vols systems were slow because the system had to be timed slow for the whistle to operate) All hands would start counting the bells as soon as the box started coming in. No matter how big or small your city was, by the second digit you knew if you were 1st due, 2nd due, not assigned, etc.

Old guys like me are like Pavlov's dog. Start ringing bells at the proper timing, ,and we start counting.

Chief,

Another reason for a need to have a dispatcher in Hartsdale..to read he boxes? I guess its a digital read out? No more punch tapes? back in the day did the box number sound with the horns and sirens?

In Nassau County New Hyde Park is the only dept with a fully functional gamewell system. Horns and sirens. Each house still has the tape reel they count. When you pull a street box it begines the audible horns and sirens, the diaphone horn blows the box number location. The county dispatch has a digital reader...hey were thiiiiiissss close to getting the tape reel installed due to many maintenance problems with the digital reader.

My Dept. had over 200 Gmewell street boxes untill they were pulled in late 1986, for the Kingfisher radio boxes, which were instaled only on main roads and in schools. We cover Belmont Race Track and they have a system as well but it is now the radio boxes. Security monitors the boxes, County dispatch did untill mid 2009.

One of the classic punch tape stories is that the dispatch center who dispatched us in the 70's and 80's had the tape reel in the office. No bell indicator, so on the night shifts if the dispatcher wanted to get some "shut eye" so to speak, he would place 2 soda cans on the tape, leaning them against the wall, on the top of the tape, as the tape reader was up agains the wall. Also he would postion the key that was used to "wind" the tape, inside the reel just enough to hold it there. When a box would come in the cans and key would fall onto the console waking him!!!!

[wraftery 1,275]

Yes, Hartsdale's boxes are read on a computer screen. The system was put in along with a complete comm upgrade when Sta 2, where the dispatcher is located, received its addition and refurb. It was done after I left, so I don't have specifics. If HFD were to decide to go with the county dispatcher, the boxes could stay on the street, and the receiving point could be moved to the county via phone lines or internet, or the like.

The gamewell system lasted 100 years and is still operational. Will anything "state of the art" installed today have that same longevity or like computers will it be obsolete the day it is installed? Also, no one that I know of has weighed the 100 years cost of municipal system maintenance against the cost of putting a similar modern system on the street and then replacing it every few years to keep it current.

On 9/11 phone lines were dead or overloaded, and you couldn't connect with a cell tower anywhere in lower Manhattan but if I am correct, except for ground zero, pull a box and the firemen show up. They might have had to come from Westchester, Hoboken, or Bridgeport, but they would show up.

Edited February 17, 2011 by wraftery

[spin_the_wheel 460]

I came across a listing of horn codes for Tarrytown FD. Question... were these locations former street box locations, or are they just intersection codes. Does Tarrytown still use these signals?

Also saw an "all clear" code..what was that used for? Was that a "throw back" from the civil defense siren days for an air raid siren test with an all clear?

[wraftery 1,275]

I came across a listing of horn codes for Tarrytown FD. Question... were these locations former street box locations, or are they just intersection codes. Does Tarrytown still use these signals?

Also saw an "all clear" code..what was that used for? Was that a "throw back" from the civil defense siren days for an air raid siren test with an all clear?

1. An "all clear" is probably a civil defense signal after an air raid drill. The signals were always air raid drills because the US mainland was never attacked by air until 9/11/2001. Never forget that

2. Not every code number has a box at that location. The numbers are assigned to intersections and for calls to these intersections, the dispatcher would look up the code for the nearest intersection to the inciident and manually dial it into the system. The fire whistle would send out the code for the intersection. Boxes and box numbers are also assigned to places like schools or factories. Theose boxes are owned by the property owner, not the FD.

[RWC130 594]

For many years the City of Peekskill had Gamewell Fire Alarm Boxes including

Gamewell Tape Registers and Gong Bells in every Firehouse that would tap out the

rounds when a box when pulled.

We also had Gamewell Diaphone Horns. One was on top of the NYS Armory on Washington St.

and the other on top of the Peekskill Fire Patrol on Highland Ave.

The system was taken out of service in the mid 1990's.

I have a large collection of Gamewell Fire Alarm Boxes, a Bell and a Tape Register.

Some of my boxes date back to the late 1880's (Yes, I said 1880's) I have a lot of

newer ones too 1980's and 1990's.

Any fans on here of Gamewell Fire Alarm Boxes?

Please "Like" or Join my Facebook groups. A lot of photos and information.

https://www.facebook...ellFireAlarmBox

https://www.facebook...llfirealarmbox/

Here is two YouTube videos of Gamewell Fire Alarm equipment in use.

Box, Tape Register (aka Tapper) and Bell.

(one of our EMTBravo members)

ENJOY!

[IzzyEng4 427]

You can always tell a system with diaphones / sirens verses a system without. Systems with "horns" run slower so it can pronounce the "blasts" where as a fast running system like in the first video would be utilized at a manned firestation with a watch desk.

I love to see that there are people who collect the boxes and accessories and get them up and running. It may be an antiquated system but it is STILL THE MOST RELIABLE ALERTING SYSTEM OUT THERE!

Now if I can only find a 477 cog or a 292 number plate for my boxes!

[wraftery 1,275]

Izzy FYI, I took a piece of aluminum flat stock, wire brushed it in one direction for the right look, and cut it to the size of a number plate and drilled mounting holes. Then took1" press on vinyl numbers and put them on the plate. Next, I painted the plate black and removed the vinyl numbers.

To change speed on a box, there is a little "T" shaped bar with weights on it towards the rear of the mechanism. The bar "wiggles" when the box operates. Sliding the weights inward makes the box faster, silding them outward makes the box slower. Systems without Horns are usually times at 1 second. With horns, the timing has to allow the horn to reset itself for the next blast. This is often timed as high as 2 seconds depending on the horn.

[spin_the_wheel 460]

Tarrytown signals

http://www.tarrytown...arm_Signals.pdf

Thanks for all the feedback.....who transmits the horn codes the PD? Can 60 control do this as well?

Edited October 9, 2012 by spin_the_wheel

[gamewell45 258]

You can always tell a system with diaphones / sirens verses a system without. Systems with "horns" run slower so it can pronounce the "blasts" where as a fast running system like in the first video would be utilized at a manned firestation with a watch desk.

I love to see that there are people who collect the boxes and accessories and get them up and running. It may be an antiquated system but it is STILL THE MOST RELIABLE ALERTING SYSTEM OUT THERE!

Now if I can only find a 477 cog or a 292 number plate for my boxes!

You might be able to have a machine shop fabricate a plate for you for relatively lost cost if you take a snapshot of a plate on an existing box and provide it to them.

[wraftery 1,275]

Izzy FYI, I took a piece of aluminum flat stock, wire brushed it in one direction for the right look, and cut it to the size of a number plate and drilled mounting holes. Then took1" press on vinyl numbers and put them on the plate. Next, I painted the plate black and removed the vinyl numbers.

To change speed on a box, there is a little "T" shaped bar with weights on it towards the rear of the mechanism. The bar "wiggles" when the box operates. Sliding the weights inward makes the box faster, silding them outward makes the box slower. Systems without Horns are usually times at 1 second. With horns, the timing has to allow the horn to reset itself for the next blast. This is often timed as high as 2 seconds depending on the horn.

Here's a picture of the number plate I described above. It's dark, but my flsah was giving me a hard time

If you find the right cog wheel where you can massage it to the number you want, a guy that's really good with a Dremel tool might be able to change the cogs for you. I would shy away from the guy in your house that says he can do it with a gasoline powered saw, but a guy that's really good with a whizzer saw might get away with it.

[RWC130 594]

Here is a YouTube Video of a Gamewell Diaphone Horn.

Turn the sound up nice and LOUD lol.

Long before our cool Portables, Pagers, IPage, CAD, Scanner Phone Apps, Etc the horns

would blow the rounds of the box that was pulled or a company call.

One great thing about this was NO DELAY! The minute the box was pulled the horns

would start blasting the box location.

I remember as a kid being at the Firehouse when a "General Alarm" as we called it

would come in. The truck would be out the door before radio dispatch or during it.

Peekskill FD and Ossining FD had Diaphone Horns. Anyone else?

[IzzyEng4 427]

Wraferty and Gamewell thank you for the info!

(*)

[spin_the_wheel 460]

http://www.legotwpfire.com/gamewell.htm

[CBX4627 114]

The street pull-box has not become obsolete. Not one bit. Unless you can show me a fool-proof, never fail method of reporting an emergency, there will be a place for the street pull box. Oh, remember that this device has to be available to everyone. How many people don't have cell-phones, or home phones? Not many in Dobbs Ferry, but in some inner-city neighborhoods, there are still some without.

How about a child? That same group of kids who maliciously pulls the box after school might actually have an emergency to report and no phone.

How about a catastrophic event? I don't know about you, but on 9/11 or the 2003 black-out, I couldn't make a phone call on my cell for hours.

Dispatch has taken steps to reduce malicious false alarms. Almost all pull-type boxes have been replaced with an intercom style. The person pushes a button and speaks with a dispatcher. Between the hours of 7am and 11pm, if no contact is received by the dispatcher, no units respond. If a "no-contact" box is received after 11pm, one single engine responds to investigate.

It doesn't happen often, but I have responded to more than one "ERS" (intercom pull-box) alarm that turned out to be an all hands fire. While the alarm was phoned in as well, it was the ERS report that had us out the door 30 seconds earlier.

The street alarm box still has a functional place in many areas. Cost? It is an almost invisible line item on this city's budget. It is a small price to pay for a tried and true system. This is a great example of positive redundancy.

Lastly, in light of the recently introduced "UCT 911" system and it's many shortcomings and failures, it's nice to know that there is still as system out there that will put the public in direct contact with Fire or Police dispatchers and not some low-rent, ineffectively trained call-taker.

Couple years ago I worked a night tour in 69 Engine.............Somewhere between 5-6 am we get an ERS no contact.........pull around the corner onto Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. and it's out 4 windows of a vacant building...........No B.S................Had no other calls

[FFPCogs 863]

Here is a YouTube Video of a Gamewell Diaphone Horn.

Turn the sound up nice and LOUD lol.

Long before our cool Portables, Pagers, IPage, CAD, Scanner Phone Apps, Etc the horns

would blow the rounds of the box that was pulled or a company call.

One great thing about this was NO DELAY! The minute the box was pulled the horns

would start blasting the box location.

I remember as a kid being at the Firehouse when a "General Alarm" as we called it

would come in. The truck would be out the door before radio dispatch or during it.

Peekskill FD and Ossining FD had Diaphone Horns. Anyone else?

Belltown FD in Stamford has a horn atop the firehouse which until recently was tested everyday at 12 pm and box 4 sounded for working fires. Up til the late 80's (I think) the horn was tied into a Gamewell system that had operated for years and residents were issued cards for their refrigerator listing all the box numbers and locations if they wanted them....I spent many a day in my youth chasing those horns and loved every minute of it!!. The street boxes were removed when the "new" dispatch center was opened in City hall around 88-89 or so. Also in the mid 80's condos went up behind the firehouse as well so we had to amend our horn protocols so that only street (or in our terminolgy "straight") boxes set it off 24/7, otherwise it was only sounded for phone alarms of structure fires or for calls during power outages. The system sans the street boxes has since developed a short somewhere which we have thus far we have been unable to track down so unfortunately as of now it is out of service indefinitely.

As for steet boxes, I was in Mass this weekend and noticed that all of the six towns I visited still had and operated them...a welcome sight indeed. Izzy can confirm but I think Ansonia, CT still has them as well...or at least they did during my tenure there.

I still value the Gamewells no matter how few calls they might report, in keeping with my belief that sometimes newer isn't always better. I can't think of any more reliable notification sytem than those old red boxes...I'd love to see them return!!

Stay Safe

Edited October 15, 2012 by FFPCogs