I hooked up the air raid siren on my HO scale layout. It actually operates.
Here’s a YouTube video link to see it operate:
Now that is something different and very cool indeed. How is the sound made, a real air raid siren under the layout?
The sound is a custom run HQ sound module by ITT Products.
I provided the sound clip and they made the sound board for me. The sound board is under the layout and the speaker is in the military barracks.
That’s very [8D] Matt, though I can only hope those two chaps outside the barracks door aren’t members of the antiaircraft unit!![swg]
Cheers, the Bear.
Very clever, indeed, Matt!
I’d like to have one rigged up so that when little hands (or big ones for that matter) reach in to touch something on the layout it wails like a banshee!
I recently had the opportunity to communicate with George Solovay at ITTP and found him to be a great person to deal with and an asset to the hobby!
Thanks for posting the video, Ed
Boy does that bring back memories! Gave me goose bumps!
Very well done indeed. Did you build the siren or was it a kit? If you built the mechanism a ‘how to’ post would be really nice.
Also, where did you get the recording of the siren?
Dave
I fondly remember the Red Alert signal: a continuous tone. It certainly got a person thinking. Especially when it was unanticipated.
Ed
Not uncommon to hear them during severe storm season around here. Many places test them once a month. Some towns used to sound them at noon every day, except maybe weekends.
The town my uncle lived in had the siren go off at noon and 6pm during the work week. They lived next to it. (A different style mounted on the town’s water tower.) I remember it going off at 6pm one day when we were visiting. Scared us kids and was it ever loud.
Jeff
Remember those from the “kiss your ass goodby” days, they are long gone from my area.
Thanks all,
The air raid siren (a thunderbolt) was a resin kit I found online a few years ago. Unfortunately the bookmark I have no longer works so these may not be made anymore.
The kit came with the siren and boxes. It might have also come with a mounting pole, but I made my own.
To make it spin I used a spare Walthers motor I had. The motor Walthers uses for their oil well. I mounted the siren on a piece of brass rod and this rod is in a tube. The tube is glued but the rod is not so it can spin freely.
Very nice. Next trick is to animate the two military types to do a disappearing act…
Slightly O/T. A similar siren was installed at a Titan silo after residential development closed in on what had been empty desert, to warn the locals when the beast was about to fire. It was tested weekly - and the NIMBYs complained. Loudest squawks came from a bunch of teachers at the elementary school located between the silo and the rails - somewhat closer to the rails.
So we went out and tested sound levels. The siren registered 63 decibels. The air horn of an SP freight registered 72. The passing train, at closest approach, sustained 65-67 decibels (with higher spikes) for two minutes.
Sent the report to Public Affairs, copies to the school principal and the TV reporter who composed the local station sound bite. The return silence was deafening.
Good thing the Titan never fired. If they thought that siren was loud…
Chuck (Ex Missile Wing statistician modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Possibly the Ralph Ratcliffe model?
Yes that’s it. But I can’t seem to find a working website for Ratcliffe models.
Lots of them around here. They test them first Monday or Tuesday of the month. They go off any other time and we’re supposed to look and see if there is a plume coming from the local “steam electric station” (otherwise known as the nuclear power plant).
Also, before the invention of beepers and text messages, all the local volunteer fire companies used them to notify the firefighters were needed.
Don’t know if it is the same individual, but there is a Facebook listing: https://www.facebook.com/Ralph-Ratcliffe-Models-142089775856001/timeline/
Some nice HO scale truck models there.
The only real info I could find was this page
From that it seems he’s doing custom work only now, which is what you find on his Facebook page.
They still do in my area. Test it once a week. (Thursday evening at 7pm.) It doubles as a Tornado siren. (They will sound, shut off mid-sound, sound full cycle, then continuously sound for Tornados at that station. We are in the country, so, if we ever are outside and hear that pattern…)
The one downtown however, is strictly emergency use only. (Manufacturing plant issues, and Tornados.) They tested it once every two months. (Always first full week, usually on Wednesday. Always after 1pm, but before 5pm.)
One time, they made the mistake (well, had the misfortune) of testing it on a day we actually had bad weather in the vicinity… Boy did that ruffle feathers! (They now test it every two months, same schedule, first full week, on Wednesday, now at 2pm, unless there is inclement weather in the area. Then they announce they will test it the following week, on the next Wednesday, at 2pm.)
Then the time that the power went out, and the safety switch was burnt out. Caused it to start sounding, and they could not get it shut off… Worried several people until the announcement was made that the plant was not going to blow up, that there was no bad weather, and that it was a technical issue that was the problem. Then everyone just got mad…
But, nothing beat the local emergency response team for the county running a drill, starting at 5pm, that a Tornado had touched down in the largest town in the county, and running a test response to it, and running it on a day we had a Tornado warning! Without announcing it was a drill!
Even the emergency responders thought it was real. That really ticked off everyone. Big time.
They no longer run that drill in t
That is very cool! Around here (Mpls-St.Paul) they blow the sirens at 1 pm the first Wednesday every month. IIRC my first couple of years in school we used to at least once a year use that test for an “air raid drill” where we all lined up and went down into the basement. We do something like that in March or April now at work, but it’s a ‘severe storm drill’.
Otherwise, we hear them once or twice each summer as a tornado warning. The up-and-down wail is for a tornado, at one time a long, continuous tone was for a severe thunderstorm, but that one is rarely used now. (They generally blow all the sirens in the county if a funnel cloud or tornado is spotted, so usually the actual tornado ‘event’ is many miles away from us.)
Along with animating the people outside the building, don’t forget to animate the lovestock freaking out under the tree!
In my hometown there is a lot of oil refineries and chemical industry, and there are warning sirens associated with those for emergencies, and they test those every week, at 12:30PM on Mondays.