The Siren Board

Found a photo of this (thought at 1st it was a Whelen lol)

Oh wow thats really something, Where'd you find that?

Some are saying elsewhere this was a faked photo from Tuscaloosa Alabama and that this came up elsewhere on the board.

jacob585 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 07, 2020 1:13 am

Some are saying elsewhere this was a faked photo from Tuscaloosa Alabama and that this came up elsewhere on the board.

This is not a fake photo I have the original at my house. This photo was published in a W.S. Darley Magazine back in the 1980s. I believe the caption was "typical siren installation" or something. Fun fact was that the Alertronic 5000 was already discontinued by the time that issue was published.

Holy smokes!

jacob585 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 07, 2020 1:13 am

Some are saying elsewhere this was a faked photo from Tuscaloosa Alabama and that this came up elsewhere on the board.

You're thinking of that time someone faked a recording of an AL-5000 a few years ago. it was an obvious fake because it used the photo from the famous ACA brochure. he did make it sound pretty real though, at least from what i remember.

sirensandfirealarms wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 07, 2020 4:00 pm

jacob585 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 07, 2020 1:13 am

Some are saying elsewhere this was a faked photo from Tuscaloosa Alabama and that this came up elsewhere on the board.

You're thinking of that time someone faked a recording of an AL-5000 a few years ago. it was an obvious fake because it used the photo from the famous ACA brochure. he did make it sound pretty real though, at least from what i remember.

Yea but wasn't it debunked because it was using a realistic ACA/ASC sound from out of its time period?

Hopefully not too big of a bump. I'm very interested in rare sirens, so I thought I'd do some digging on this 5000 unit. Based on the Tuscaloosa inference I may have found where this unit was located (assuming it wasn't faked).


Here you can see the Mansard roof on the Piggly Wiggly, and it seems to be the same one in the Alertronic photo. I couldn't get the same angle as the original photo because there's no street view where I believe the photo was taken.


The yellow arrow is where I believe the Alertronic was installed, as there's a stop sign by the pole which indicates the end of a road. The red arrow is around the area which I believe the photo was taken, judging off the angle of the roof in the photo.

I left the addresses of the intersection and Piggly Wiggly in the screenshots in case anyone wants to do some further digging or debunking of my theory.

You could also try historicaerials.com, they have aerial imagery of lots of areas that can date back as far as the 40's. It might be helpful in confirming this was the location. The pictures are usually too blurry to make out sirens but it can help determine locations.

Oh my god...

Not to derail the topic too much, but that website is truly amazing. I can see the farms at my house in the 50's! This might help me see if that suspicious pole near my house really was a Thunderbolt...