Malfunctioning Thunderbolt Columbus OH 8/6/08 pt.1 

R.I.P Thunderbolt ;(

@kasm279 Yes. There are three main controls for sirens: radio, telephone, and local. Local is just when the siren is at a firehouse or police station and they manually turn it on inside the station. Federal Signal has its own radio protocols for siren activation, which is why the Columbus Thunderbolts were unique, since they ran on the radio protocol of Federal's competitor, Whelen.

@fourstar7 My grandparents lived off of Etna and Country Club. There was a thunderbolt in Ortin Davis Park, of course the name is different now, but it scared the crap out of me whenever I heard it go off! It has now been replaced by a Whelen 4004.

This siren was located at Mifflin Middle School on the corner of Agler Rd. and Sunbury Rd. I remember the siren at the Cemetery too.

I hope they fix the Thunderbolt insted of installing a new siren.

@kasm279 When Columbus started switching to Whelen sirens, they retrofitted all of the Thunderbolts with Whelen siren controls (antenna, radio, and DTMF encoder/decoder). Prior to the Whelen infestation, all sirens were activated via a telephone line.

you can just hear the blower turn off at 0:07 :(

@fourstar7 I still remember when the whole city howled with thunderbolts on wednesday's at noon until about the early to mid 90s it became 50/50.

@bt25 Yeah. Weren't some Thunderbolts and other sirens (not in your location) installed with radio controls?

i like those tones before it comes on and after its gone off

yes, the background has some 3016s and 4004s mixed together

The siren should have turned on, as it did, during the first string, but should not have shut off until after the second string. The siren should have done a steady alert tone the entire time.

The only Tbolt in Gahanna that I remember what replaced in the graveyard near Stygler Road last year. Unless there was another that I am not aware of.

well the siren sounds like its not getting enough voltage that and the starters could be ''jittery'' which means the contactors started chattering like teeth and automatically trips it and turns it off.... this thunderbolt sounds like it still has the RCM system intead of the retrofitted whelen control... as you can hear the blower has a delayed kick off...the Starters require certain amps with out it the contacts will chatter...sometimes even kick off the siren. a friends thunderbolt done it.

The 1000T at the graveyard was replaced with a 4004 as well.

Sounds like the blower motor died during the test. or the control box

Yeah, it must've, the other siren I know of in Gahanna was the one at the police station by the high school and one on Taylor Station road. The one at the high school is a 3016 and I think the one on Taylor Station was a 3016. Don't quote me, it might've been replaced with a 4004. The 3016 at the high school has been there as long as I can remember, I grew up in Gahanna.

How can your scanner pick up the dial tones? Are they transmitted wirelessly? What does the blower motor do? Was the second DTMF tone sequence a shut down or stop sequence?

These sirens are old but VERY loud. My guess is something manage to cross wire behind the chopper in the blower

@gajda1984 i do remember living in English Village, hearing a Thunderbolt scream because of an incoming severe thunderstorm/tornado cell. scary ass sirens.

Thats what i was saying. It sounded like in your description you were saying it wasn't a good idea to try to use the scanner to turn the sirens on, maybe i misunderstood you?

I wouldn't count it as "Shot" yet. The whole thing is still operating right? I mean, all the siren ITSELF is, is 3 motors being controlled by one timer. The reason the T-bolt may have shut off early is because it may be on a timer set to let the siren only cycle a few times. Or who knows, maybe it's the timer that's shot. But all her 3 motors did function as they should have.

whats the beeping sound

I hope they fix the siren instead of replacing it with a newer one, The Thunderbolt is one of my personal favorites. FS 2001-130's seem to be the new trend for sirens, at least from what I noticed while being here in Illinois. I've only seen a Whelen 4004, one ACA P-15 and probably about 11 2001-130's.

@bulldozer950 There is one on granville and old ridenour road in gahanna at the cemetary.

what is the dialing

You can deff hear the blower cut out nice

Reminds me of a video of a Whelen with the DTMF tones. Thats it though, nothing else is the same..

The blower shutting off could just be a timer issue

blower randomly shuts off? weird...

Uh-Oh someone needs to take a look at that!

Anytime notice a humming sound that stopped right before the siren stopped? I don't think my tablet picked up the motor but that may be it.

From the way, this siren was behaving the issue seems to be that the radio was most likely malfunctioning or not programmed correctly. Newer radio timer combos when put on older sirens have proven in many cases to be unreliable, malfunctioning, not integrating well with the existing controls, rendering certain auxiliary features such as dampers unusable, and not being programmed correctly for the sirens they are on. Most of the thunderbolts in Columbus that were recorded would sound 2 cycles of a broken attack signal or a growl when they were supposed to sound a 25 second alert. This I can almost guarantee was the fault of the Whelen radios they equipped these sirens with rather than the siren's own fault. If these sirens were equipped with and controlled by AR timers and the modern radio simply served as a radio and not as a timer, then I am sure these sirens would have worked correctly.

it sounded like the blower shut off

So, you have a problem with the siren controls and replace the entire siren..... Sounds logical.

I love it

whats the beeping in the background before in turns on? a remote control or somtin?

i hope you reported the failure to your borough?

oh shit we have a Thunderbolt on Sunbury?! fuck yeah! those are really old sirens.

They may have accidentally Growled the siren instead of alert... my town does that alot :/ the 2001-130 will fire up for like 3 seconds and turn off

Those DTMFs sounds like someone dialing a phone with a machine gun.

That s where my dad grew up

A "scanner", I guess he had some kinda radio turned on..

That's me, but I was sick.

Ok. That is a very messed up thunderbolt

Thunderbolt: zzzzz... Oh crap! I'm late for test day!

I can't find this siren on google maps for some reason...

I have alot of bass, so i caught it

158.925 Mhz on your trusty scanner

I did hear the motor shut down.

Something is fucked up in the control box

If there going to take it out, can I have it?

What series blower?

So it doesn't work any more?

@bulldozer950 we never had 1000s or 1003s, only 1000Ts. and i totally agree!

is this siren still up or has it been replaced?

There are 3 left in the county.

Ah. Gotcha.

agreed

Uhm what the hell was that all about?

Might save up money and see if there are any left and grab it before it gets replaced. cause can't some be personal sirens?

Hey that's my dads old school

I wanna take that thunderbolt if i see it in the siren graveyard

&#$@! Stupid Whelens! I hope they forget about the replacement... If they don't, I hope this thunderbolt is repaired and finds a good home elswhere.

AS silly as this sounds, but the problem could have been something as simple as a fuse blowing or a circuit breaker tripping.

its called a noon blast

That poor siren

FMEX.

I don't think you can actually activate the siren from a scanner. The scanner just picks up the DTMF tones.

i agree. did u know there was a Whelan in mah town that didnt go off when it was supposed to?PROOF that Whelans and FS 2001s SUCK ASS.

The blower shutting off could just be a timer issue