Gamewell made the boxes with the rounded top door in 51. Before, the doors were square. They started making the boxes with hercuilite in the 1920's (1928 I believe). Before that hte boxes were cast iron. As for the innards, the Three-Fold Mechanism came out in the 20's as well, I believe. First brass, then to aluminum. Around the same time, the bell went from upside-down to right-side-up. Anything that does not look like anything I mentioned is pre-1924. Hope that helps!
My hometown still uses these. When my friends came to visit from out west they were stunned to see these. Aparently not to many in california now. Most cities in Mass have removed them but, my how town still uses them.
I still service fire alarm systems in Chicago that are tied to these boxes. The fire alarm trips a coil in the city box, thus unwinding the box as if it were manually pulled. Most of the city boxes that are outdoors in chicago have the handle blanked off due to prank false alarms. One of the sites that I service has an outdoor city box, being tripped by a Couch fire alarm from 1968!
I've got an old box... box 71... my wife got me for my birthday... one of the coolest things ever. I work at a fire dispatch center and we cover 38 different agencies... One two communities ring into dispatch... the rest ring into the stations and to the PDs... the PDs usually report them while the guys are getting ready to go on the run... It's too bad they're being phased out by other alarm systems and radio boxes... Great video!
When I worked at Fircrest School for the Developmentally Disabled in Shoreline, WA some years back (used to be a Navy hospital in WWII) they had a complete Gamewell setup- keywound everything IIRC. The keywound punch tape register thingie was the coolest! But the State Fire Marshall was losing his patience with it (I think) because there was no circuit integrity monitoring (McCulloch loop?) but that's from my vacuum-tube memory. Great video, thank you for the memories!!!
So just wondering everytime that little | lever thing in the middle goes TAP TAP that would usually be a bell hooked up that would go RING RING.... RING RING? IF NOT, then how did this system work? Very interesting
The "little lever" inside the dome is a "round cam," which is defferent on each box. It opens and closes the relay...breaking the 48V. system, which punches holes in the tape, at the same time ringing the station bells. The men would count the num. of holes on a wall chart, giving them the location of the box that was pulled. A "pulled-box" came in 4 complete [rounds] times, and the system was relatively fail-safe.
More important is the current rather than the voltage. 100 milliamps is the range that is needed. Higher current or amps can cause the coils to burn up.
Nice demo of Ye olde alarm box. I was about 14 yrs old when I pulled the hook on a fire alarm box. I came upon a garage on fire while riding my Cushman Motor Scooter, but the fire engines whizzed pass me because apparently someone reported it by telephone. Thanks for posting. BTW, it was at Ockley Dr. and Youree Dr. in Shreveport, LA - I will never forget it.
how do u find out how old these are? we have one and i dont know how to find that out
wesleyac123 2 years ago
@wesleyac123
Gamewell made the boxes with the rounded top door in 51. Before, the doors were square. They started making the boxes with hercuilite in the 1920's (1928 I believe). Before that hte boxes were cast iron. As for the innards, the Three-Fold Mechanism came out in the 20's as well, I believe. First brass, then to aluminum. Around the same time, the bell went from upside-down to right-side-up. Anything that does not look like anything I mentioned is pre-1924. Hope that helps!
boxcom5622 2 years ago
@boxcom5622 thanks my dad has one and we where trying toi figure a year for it
wesleyac123 2 years ago
My hometown still uses these. When my friends came to visit from out west they were stunned to see these. Aparently not to many in california now. Most cities in Mass have removed them but, my how town still uses them.
Rick9368 2 years ago
I still service fire alarm systems in Chicago that are tied to these boxes. The fire alarm trips a coil in the city box, thus unwinding the box as if it were manually pulled. Most of the city boxes that are outdoors in chicago have the handle blanked off due to prank false alarms. One of the sites that I service has an outdoor city box, being tripped by a Couch fire alarm from 1968!
gamealarm 2 years ago
I've got an old box... box 71... my wife got me for my birthday... one of the coolest things ever. I work at a fire dispatch center and we cover 38 different agencies... One two communities ring into dispatch... the rest ring into the stations and to the PDs... the PDs usually report them while the guys are getting ready to go on the run... It's too bad they're being phased out by other alarm systems and radio boxes... Great video!
psteele35 3 years ago
When I worked at Fircrest School for the Developmentally Disabled in Shoreline, WA some years back (used to be a Navy hospital in WWII) they had a complete Gamewell setup- keywound everything IIRC. The keywound punch tape register thingie was the coolest! But the State Fire Marshall was losing his patience with it (I think) because there was no circuit integrity monitoring (McCulloch loop?) but that's from my vacuum-tube memory. Great video, thank you for the memories!!!
NipkowDisk 3 years ago
So just wondering everytime that little | lever thing in the middle goes TAP TAP that would usually be a bell hooked up that would go RING RING.... RING RING? IF NOT, then how did this system work? Very interesting
cmarlow480 4 years ago
The "little lever" inside the dome is a "round cam," which is defferent on each box. It opens and closes the relay...breaking the 48V. system, which punches holes in the tape, at the same time ringing the station bells. The men would count the num. of holes on a wall chart, giving them the location of the box that was pulled. A "pulled-box" came in 4 complete [rounds] times, and the system was relatively fail-safe.
oledandie 4 years ago
More important is the current rather than the voltage. 100 milliamps is the range that is needed. Higher current or amps can cause the coils to burn up.
threephase69 2 years ago
Nice demo of Ye olde alarm box. I was about 14 yrs old when I pulled the hook on a fire alarm box. I came upon a garage on fire while riding my Cushman Motor Scooter, but the fire engines whizzed pass me because apparently someone reported it by telephone. Thanks for posting. BTW, it was at Ockley Dr. and Youree Dr. in Shreveport, LA - I will never forget it.
Doczaff 4 years ago
I pulled one of these in Manistee Michigan when I was 5 years old.
I still remember the shear panic when it started buzzing.
Legend813a 4 years ago