The Siren Board

Hello, this is my first post here.

I am a resident of Wausau, WI and I am trying to locate and pinpoint the sirens in the city and the suburb's in the city's immediate area. We have all mechanical sirens. I know we have a Thunderbolt 1000T, an allertor, a couple of T-128's, T-121's, some 2001's, and a thunderbeam. I have heard we have 13 or 14 sirens total.

We used to have an SD-10 but I heard it broke and had to be replaced (but I do not know what replaced it). I think Rib Mountain used to have a Model 5 which went down with the old fire department.

I know the thunderbolt is located downtown on top of the landmark building, it is on Chopper Level 6, A series blower, and rotates at 8 RPM. I live only a half mile away from it, and believe me, it is still pretty loud at that distance.

I also know the location of the P-50, it is in Rib Mountain and is located on top of Rib Mountain State Park.

I have seen the allertor, but I do not remember it's location, only that it is located in front of an elementary school. I do not know the locations of the other sirens, but I will keep my eyes peeled for them.

The sirens are purposed for tornado warnings. They sound every week at 1:15 PM on mondays for the weekly test (I think they do not test in winter though).

However, for some reason our sirens only test in alert for one minute. I have never heard them in attack, I do not know why the county or city does not test that tone, but we don't.

FunnelVortex wrote:
However, for some reason our sirens only test in alert for one minute. I have never heard them in attack, I do not know why the county or city does not test that tone, but we don't.

Welcome aboard!!! Okay so the reason why is because some cities prefer alert over attack. A lot of nebraska does alert... A few small places do attack (Like the UNL sirens) but pretty much all the rest that I have heard out there have done alert. Lincoln city OR tests in a small 10 second alert and a few places just prefer the tone. Some places even have a system where half go in alert and half go in attack just for the variety. Some places even test the growl, alert and attack on all sirens. So it's all just how the county really decides to do it I think...

Attack signal is way better. People need to realize it isn't the Cold War anymore as far as signaling goes. Why do you think they picked the attack signal in the 50's? Because it was the most attention getting. A 9/12 port siren on alert from a distance away to an old person, sounds like a leaf blower. The attack signal is unmistakable. People don't turn power tools on and off. Just my .2 Back on topic...

Welcome! That's a good variety of sirens you guys have up there in Wausau, seems to be not so common anymore for any sizable city to still have a decent number of old sirens in service anymore. As for your Allertor, here it is in front of Riverview Elementary School. There's also a single tone ACA P-15 located at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School next to the pool at Schulenberg Park, and there's also a video of it running for one of the tests.

stormsetter4 wrote:Attack signal is way better. People need to realize it isn't the Cold War anymore as far as signaling goes. Why do you think they picked the attack signal in the 50's? Because it was the most attention getting. A 9/12 port siren on alert from a distance away to an old person, sounds like a leaf blower. The attack signal is unmistakable. People don't turn power tools on and off. Just my .2 Back on topic...

I dont know, the thunderbolt we have (which is the closest siren to me) is an unmistakable sound even in alert. It sounds, kinda odd actually. Here is a video of it (the vid is not mine, BTW)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pi4D6Q4Su0

But I do somewhat have to agree. If I were in charge, I would do alert for severe thunderstorms and attack for tornadoes.

murrfarms wrote:Welcome! That's a good variety of sirens you guys have up there in Wausau, seems to be not so common anymore for any sizable city to still have a decent number of old sirens in service anymore. As for your Allertor, here it is in front of Riverview Elementary School. There's also a single tone ACA P-15 located at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School next to the pool at Schulenberg Park, and there's also a video of it running for one of the tests.

Yeah, here in Wausau we use things until they are no good anymore. When an old siren breaks down, they fix it and get it back into service ASAP.

And I forgot about that P-15.

As you can imagine, it is quite the ambiance. I found a video of the ambiance of one of the weekly tests https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75kus1MdESg (Once again, this is not my video)..

coastalsyrolover wrote:

FunnelVortex wrote:
However, for some reason our sirens only test in alert for one minute. I have never heard them in attack, I do not know why the county or city does not test that tone, but we don't.

Welcome aboard!!! Okay so the reason why is because some cities prefer alert over attack. A lot of nebraska does alert... A few small places do attack (Like the UNL sirens) but pretty much all the rest that I have heard out there have done alert. Lincoln city OR tests in a small 10 second alert and a few places just prefer the tone. Some places even have a system where half go in alert and half go in attack just for the variety. Some places even test the growl, alert and attack on all sirens. So it's all just how the county really decides to do it I think...

Yeah, I would like to hear them in attack for once. But everyone in the city would have to be notified of the new tone being tested or else people may freak out thinking Putin or Kim Jong Un finally decided to attack us

But I would like to hear Hi-Lo too, but we do not have any Hi-Lo capable sirens around here.

There are 2 more Wausau Allertors that I know of:

1. 66th Ave just south of Packer Dr... You can see it from HWY 29.
2. NW corner of Honeysuckle Ln and S 32nd Ave.

Sorry for the bump but you also forgot the Thunderbeam, model 7t, and a t-112