Civil Defense Sirens Wiki (2024)

Welcome to the CIVIL DEFENSE SIRENS WIKI! If you are new here, please read the Wiki Rules and Writing Guide first before contributing.

Enjoy your time on the site!

Info

Civil defense sirens, also known as air raid or tornado sirens, come in many different shapes and sizes. There are 2 main types of civil defense sirens. An electromechanical siren is a siren that uses an electric motor to drive a spinning rotor, or chopper, inside of a stationary stator.

An electronic siren is much different than a mechanical siren. Rather than using a chopper, electronic sirens make use of a tone generator or stored preset sounds and amplifiers inside a controller, which broadcasts tones to the siren itself. Other types of sirens also exist, including friction, hand-cranked, and gasoline-driven sirens. Civil defense sirens are an important key in keeping the public safe from danger, alongside modern technology.

We have 181 articles, 1,372 files, and 10 active users. While we aim to stay factual in our information, we are not gospel. Information on this wiki can be incorrect, so don't refrain from doubting information and voicing your thoughts.

This month's featured siren...

The Julius Pearse Fire Department Supply Company was an American fire department supply company founded in Denver, CO. The company primarily provided fire apparatus and fire engines, It is also known for its outdoor fire siren, which was one of many attempts by different companies to compete in the booming fire siren market of the early 20th century. Pearse could not compete with companies such as Sterling Siren and Federal Electric, leading to the company exiting the market and ultimately going defunct after the death of its founders. Only one siren is known to survive today, located in Mt. Baldy, CA.

The Julius Pearse company is known for selling an early example of an electric fire siren as early as 1914, at a time when fire sirens were still in their infancy. The Sterling Model M had been created only two years prior, and other companies such as Heath Engineering Labs had little success outside of their home states. The siren, which lacks a known model name, is a small two-horsepower single rotor vertical siren, and is one of the earliest examples of a vertical outdoor warning siren. The siren is incredibly basic, lacking any sort of housing or projector. and is nothing more than a bare rotor, stator and motor. The siren uses a short, wide rotor and stator, which is 14-port single tone. Interestingly, the Pearse siren has curved rotor vanes similar to a , and there is a large gap between the roof of the rotor and the top cover of the stator. The motor is located underneath the stator, and is a low-torque 2 hp AC motor. It is an early example of a siren with a ball bearing motor, which allows the siren to coast for a long period of time. Pearse anticipated that the motor could be damaged from moisture or debris, and placed a large metal cap branded with "PEARSE CO. DENVER" (which caused much confusion with the William A. Box Denver sirens) over the top of the motor in between the motor and stator. (Full article...)

Previous featured siren: • Whelen WS-3000

Did you know...

• ... that the Model 2 had a special Canadian variant, known as the Model 2-3Z or Canadian Model 2?
• ... that a single CLM rotational siren is in service, in Alliance, AB?
• ... that we have 181 articles?
• ... that had partnered with Federal, ACA and now Sentry?
• ... that a Sentry F-2 operates at 14,000 rpm?

(More facts...)

About

Welcome to the Civil Defense Sirens Wiki! This site is dedicated to providing a factual, informative database about civil defense and tornado sirens across the world! If you have good knowledge about a siren and/or series of sirens, feel free to contribute! Everybody is welcome here!

Please add and share your knowledge, but vandalism and unwanted edits may lead to consequences. If you have any problems, leave a message on one of our admins' talk pages. Note that this wiki is for real, legitimate siren information. However, you're welcome to post fan-made materials on the Fictional Sirens Wiki. We also ask you to read the Rules and ask for some advice before writing a page, so you can avoid having your page deleted. You can ask for feedback from your page in the discussions, and you are free to ask any questions. Enjoy your time on the site!

News

05/29/2024 • Articles for a wide variety of non-American sirens are currently in the works! Check out our Elektror, Lion King, and Engesig articles to broaden your siren knowledge! In addition, a new page has been created for sirens which do not warrant their own articles but are worth mentioning, which is our miscellaneous sirens section!

In other news, the 5th round of the 2024 Monthy Featured Siren Vote has ended! We got 16 votes! The winner was the Julius Pearse Fire Department Supply Company, with 9 votes, while the Gamewell Codewell/Cosgrave got 7 votes. In addition, congratulations to trainsarethebest_alt for winning this month's featured artist! Anyone who wishes to submit photos for next month's featured artist can do so on our Discord! Thank you to all who voted!

Featured Artist

This month's featured artist is trainsarethebest_alt!

CDS wiki in other languages

Coming soon!

• Español | 🇪🇸 (WIP)
• Français | 🇫🇷 (WIP)
• Deutsch | 🇩🇪 (WIP)
• 官话 | 🇨🇳/🇹🇼 (WIP)
• 日本語 | 🇯🇵 (WIP)
• Bahasa Indonesia | 🇮🇩 (WIP)

Links

• Air Raid Sirens Wiki
• Siren Board

Sister wikis - Contributors welcomed!

• Siren Systems Wiki - Articles about existing siren systems. More articles are very much wanted!
• Fictional Sirens Wiki - Get creative and share your custom/fictional sirens and companies! Anything goes. *Please note that the "Sirens That Do Not Exist Wiki:" has been abandoned and this is the replacement site.*
• The Crossing Signal Database - An under-construction wiki dedicated to railroad crossing signal equipment, such as bells, lights, gate mechanisms, and more! Help is very much wanted.

Homepage done by Kruppundkrause