Calhan, Colorado siren

[djscrizzle]

...It was postponed to next Friday, May 9th, 7:00 PM. Weather depending of course. ...!

Since they missed their First Friday in May, ask if they can reschedule the First Friday in June!
We will be back from China and could make the drive to attend.
(Or hope for bad weather the next several Fridays.)
Why so late?
There is more chance of active storms in the area at 7 p.m.
Rarely do storms occur as early as Noon. They are in the building stage and to the west at that time.
Denver does their MONTHLY tests the 2nd Wednesdays at 11 a.m.

I'm honestly not sure why they chose 7pm...
Maybe they expect people to be home and carry out drills. I too gripe about the annual test, because new people have NO idea what the siren sounds like and dont know what to do sometimes.

I built a siren on a breadboard that sounds a lot like the fed 550AT the town's got... That one, I can set off anytime at any volume (gets me through in a way for lack of better words!)

I should test mine the same time slot as the town... I think theres a law against sounding a CD siren outside of municipal tests and storm emergencies.

[Robert Gift]

...I'm honestly not sure why they chose 7pm...
Maybe they expect people to be home and carry out drills.

I established our test at Noon the first Saturday of the month so that more people would likely be home and sober and would hear it.
At precisely 12:00:00, the annoyance is also an accurate time point and likely before storms build to anything.

We missed one test because of a cardiac case. I did not want to stress the patient nor interfere with obtaining vital signs, etc.
Also, I was the only one present to assist our paramedic who happened to be at the firestation. Others were far off with the ambulance in our district collecting for Muscular Dystrophy.
(You're welcome to come out and operate our 2t22 if you wish!)

I too gripe about the annual test, because new people have NO idea what the siren sounds like and dont know what to do sometimes.

Yes. Newbies will wonder what it is about.
Is a more frequent test not better for the motor bearings?

I built a siren on a breadboard that sounds a lot like the fed 550AT the town's got... That one, I can set off anytime at any volume (gets me through in a way for lack of better words!)
I should test mine the same time slot as the town... I think theres a law against sounding a CD siren outside of municipal tests and storm emergencies.

I doubt Colorado has such a law, but I certainly would not sound it unless test or necessary.
(To minimize noise pollution, I sound the vehicle siren as sparringly as possible.)

[Daniel]

I established our test at Noon the first Saturday of the month so that more people would likely be home and sober and would hear it.
At precisely 12:00:00, the annoyance is also an accurate time point and likely before storms build to anything.

In most towns during the Cold War, Saturday at noon was the standard test time for air raid sirens.

[siren fan]

Down here in Texas they used to sound the sirens at noon at small town fire stations to alert the farmers it was high noon.

[JasonC]

Down here in Texas they used to sound the sirens at noon at small town fire stations to alert the farmers it was high noon.

Thats a common tradition across the country. It stems form the industrial days when factories would blow their steam whistles to signal to their workers that it was lunch time.

[Franz?]

Noon siren tests pretty much assure sirens will work when they are needed, or the repairman will be headed for the disfunctional siren. Since the damn fools have taken over running this country and sirens are considered noise polution, we have magnificent expensive systems overseen by highly paid incompetents that fail to function when needed. Thanks to their brilliance, this failure comes as a surprize.

Back in the 50s when Civil Defense was passing out free sirens they also contracted with Fire Departments that had sirens in place to provide airraid siren service. Some of those contracts got very entertaining in the negotiation stages. A good number of Departments never did sign a contract with Civil Defense.

[Robert Gift]

...Back in the 50s when Civil Defense was passing out free sirens they also contracted with Fire Departments that had sirens in place to provide airraid siren service. Some of those contracts got very entertaining in the negotiation stages. A good number of Departments never did sign a contract with Civil Defense.

How were they interesting?
Would any fire departmentd NOT want to provide Air Raid Siren Service?
Why not?
I'd think they would be glad to.

[Franz?]

Robert, you have just asked the question that could easily require half of an encyclopedia to answer. I presume yo have little or no direct knowledge of a time when grown adults sat in plywood shantees with a phone to call a secret number and a window in the roof facing North, with a sign directly in front of the window so all they could see was the back of the sign, looking for Russian bombers.

Civil Defense was a Federal program passing out huge quantitys of war surplus materials, and huge dollar contracts to politician's relatives. It was also an agency where politicians could give jobs to their relatives too dumb to work at the Post Office. The actual nuts & bolts operation was handled by County employees, filling out reams of paper requesting crates of surplus steel helmets/white.CD emblem and whistles/chrome plated/ human powered etc.

Now, more on point, lets use this scenario. Blohard FD is a volunteer outfit supported totally by donations, a carnival, and members dues. They really want a house siren, but it will cost $500- 1952 Dollars installed, and even if they burn 1000 dead chicken cadavers and peddle 500# of government surplus spagetti they have to choose between that siren and heat for the Blohard FD house.

At the same time, Sucup FD has a bigger population base, and some generous merchants, and they bought their own siren in 1939. Blohard can apply for a CD siren, and might likely get one, because County politics are currently Republican, and Blohard votes solid Republican every election.

Sucup FD is in the same County and generally votes Democrat. Sucup will have little incentive to blow their siren at Civil Defense's wish. If they are smart, Sucup will get a contract paying their firehouse electric bill plus $20- a year, and a surplus generator and lights for their truck. That of course presumes the County politicians aren't in a tight race coming election day. If Sucup's voters go the wrong way they won't see a case of surplus canned tuna.

[djscrizzle]

Today is test day... I'll be on the north end of Colorado Ave near the bar filming our siren, at 7pm.
I'll then test mine shortly after.
Both videos will be up on youtube by the start of Saturday.

[djscrizzle]

It's about ten minutes till test time.... I need to go get into position for videoing the town's siren as soon as im done posting this message.

Hopefully, the video will come out OK. I'll be doing audio from the house and video from where I'll be at.
In editing, I'll merge the two tracks: video/audio.