ACA Allertor 125 Tornado Siren Test, Whitefish Bay, WI 1/13/10

Monthly test of the ACA Allertor 125 located at Cahill Park in Whitefish Bay, WI. This siren is controlled by the Milwaukee County Sheriffs office of emergency management. The sirens are tested at noon on the second Wednesday of the month, weather permitting.

Allertor 125s are 10 or 15 hp rotational sirens that produce 125 decibels of sound output as measured at 100. They are most commonly equipped with dual tone 9/12 port rotors, although 10/12, 8/12 and single tone 8 port versions do exist. This one, equipped with the standard 9/12 rotor, sounds to be a 15hp unit running on single phase power. It likely dates back to at least the 1980s, as can be discerned from its Civil Defense stickers and the exposed patches of its original civil defense yellow fiberglass.

This test was a roughly 1 minute alert cycle. A second rotational siren can be heard at 00:30, which sounds like a single tone Penetrator. I think the bluish green looks pretty sharp on this siren, and it looks to have been yellow before getting painted in its current color. This Allertor did not seem to have any problems with ice jamming the rotor despite several inches of snowfall in the week prior to the test.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• ACA
• Allertor
• 125
• Alert
• Tornado
• Siren
• Test
• Whitefish
• Bay
• Milwaukee
• County
• WI
• Alerting
• Communicators
• of
• America
• Green

[bnsf4]

I have always thought that these things sound and look extremely creepy.

[RamFett]

@bnsf4 I always felt the same when I used to see and hear them as a kid.

[GermanBeez]

did you ever test how many decibels it puts out peak?

[RamFett]

@GermanBeez No, I have no way of doing that. It's supposed to be 125 from 100 feet away.

[Videogamer52100]

Was this the one with the broken rotator?

[RamFett]

@Videogamer52100 No, that one was in Greenfield. It was since replaced with a T-128. Curiously enough, not long after it's replacement, a gray refurbished Allertor with ASC logos was installed in Oak Creek, WI. The working theory is that the broken Greenfield siren went back to the company for some work and is now back in service at that location.

[Zanidiyah]

I dunno why but the way this one looks was always really creepy to me...O.o

[RFKFANTS67]

You should hear a Canadian CLM:}

[uprrslo]

I like this one much better than the Thunderbolt. Louder!!

[Snubbythefrog]

I live in the WFB area and let me tell you, it's loud as hell! The small building to the left is a park building in the little of the town that had no permanent occupants. You can hear this thing for miles away!

[jackie54ful]

omg i would cry if i heard this!!!

[specops987]

i used to live in tornado valley. and yes it is a real thing not just a fucking IMAX 3D movie.this alarm sounds like the one i heard when there was actuall tornado. and let me tell you hearing one of these for real is scary as FUCK