I found this bell at my piano studio. I don’t know what it is though.
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Looks to me like it’s a Wheelock MB-G6-24-R fire bell. These are sometimes rebranded by other companies, such as Fenwal and National Time.
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Some of the pulls at one entrance were replaced with Notifier NBG-12’s. The rest of the system remains as-is.
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I live in west Omaha which is about 45 minutes away from Lincoln. Max, which Quality Inn is this? There’s 3 in town. I’d love to find a way to save these NAs. Would anyone know how that’s done?? They’re definitely due for an upgrade! My high school & old college rec center (Omaha, NE) had the SAE AV-35s and were replaced before my Freshman year in the early 2000s. Never got to see or hear what they’re liked when activated. And yes, I also have a couple pics of the brochure from SAE. Not my pics, but posted from someone else on another panel. It’s a VERY unique and rare device. I’ve been searching for years and no one in the enthusiast/tech community has one or has tested a building that still had these units!! The Spectronics rebranded 7002Ts would be cool too!
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My ideal concept for a replacement would be to fully take the old devices down, put a trim plate over the hole, & then mount a modern alarm on said plate (Wheelock’s RP-R might work, though they’d have to be turned sideways to cover the horizontal hole left behind by the AV-35s).
A trim plate (turned sideways) would definitely be needed when replacing the AV 35s, I’ve seen many trim plates, but not sideways or horizontal. Haha. What I was wondering, is how one obtains an old unit from a building? I’m not a tech or even a collector, just an enthusiast. It would be awesome for someone in the collector community finally have one of these! It’s sort of like the Fire Lite triangular wedge light. Probably from the same era? Late 70s?
Yeah, though I’m not certain if the RP-R would even fit the likely sizable hole that the AV-35 would leave behind.
As far as I know all you can try is asking the owner of the building if you can have them.
Yeah actually. Their design is very 70s-esque, but I’m not sure if their era of manufacture is known.
It’d be a large hole to replace… LOL The dimensions for this unit are 12" L x 8" H. I was wondering if you just asked the owner, odds are likely it’ll just get thrown out. I’m not specifically sure of the release by my guess would be in the 1977-1979 range. Probably after AV-34 light plate. I also know the brochure says it’s compatible for a Federal Signal 950 speaker which I think we released in 1976.
Yeah: could be done with enough work I’m sure though.
I sure hope not: like I said those are supposedly the only known AV-35s in existence, thus it’s imperative they’re saved.
Could be.
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These belong in a fire museum!! I also think it’s imperative that the backboxes be saved for display purposes.
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I agree with both your statements: save everything related to each device.
Glenn James (Old School Fire Alarms) is like that.
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It’s the one near the prison.
Ok, yep, I know where that’s at. Haha
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The main hospital in my city had an electrical room fire last year, so they had to close it for repairs. As part of this, they upgraded to a completely addressable fire alarm system! Before that, it was only a semi-addressable system; a networked Simplex 4100 with quite a few different Simplex panels across the building, even a couple of voice-evac 2001s still in use as auxiliary panels to cover the non-renovated areas still using conventional devices! Said areas largely had 2902-9712 LifeAlarm speakers on 2903-9002 light plates, 4251-20 single-action pulls, conventional TrueAlarm smoke detectors, a few of the old 4259-36 detectors installed with the 2001, a few replacement 2099-9754 and 2099-9756 pulls, a Wheelock ET speaker replacing a failed LifeAlarm… One area renovated in the early 1990s had 2902-9732 LifeAlarm speakers on 4903-9102 light plates, 2098-9201 smoke detectors, and 4251-20 pulls. Several areas renovated in the 1990s had 4903 speaker/strobes, mostly horizontal ones, though one wing had the vertical versions. At least a couple of those areas had 2099-9795 single-action pulls, and one of them had 2098-9201 smoke detector heads on addressable MAPnet bases, while other renovated areas had addressable TrueAlarms, and the emergency wing and the blood lab had 4099-9003 dual-action pulls.
Unusually, a couple areas actually used horns: the radiation therapy wing had Space Age 2DCD+AV32 horn/lights, and the family suites wing had TrueAlert horn/strobes!
I got to hear this system in action once; the areas with the LifeAlarm speaker/lights did the old 2001 chime tone, and the emergency wing with its’ 4903-9150 speaker/strobes sounded a Code-3 version of the old 4100 chime tone! The light plates flashed on 90bpm March Time.
Now they’ve been upgrading to a Simplex 4100ES voice-evac system. The areas renovated in the 2000s have largely the same devices, while the other areas being fully renovated now have TrueAlert speaker/strobes (most likely 4906-9151s) and what appear to be 4099-9006 dual-action pulls with the LED indicator.
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I’m glad their existing system at the time was able to prevent anyone from getting injured in that hospital. Seeing how big that hospital was it definitely overcrowded and overwhelmed nearby medical facilities that got backed up when it shut down. Although I wonder if they did get rid of the older light plates since the whole place was under reconstruction.
Looks like they did get rid of the old light plates, unfortunately. But at least it’s for the best; when I saw the old system in action, the 4903 speaker/strobes were a much better visual attention grabber than the 2903 light plates. And now the whole hospital will have actual ADA-compliant strobes.
I guess they went with the conventional TrueAlert speaker/strobes so they don’t have to deal with upgrading to IDNAC circuits, especially since the areas renovated in the early 2000s are still keeping their 4903 speaker/strobes, and this is a direct upgrade from a Simplex 4100+ to a 4100ES system.
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At the botanical gardens in my city, the main building there has a Notifier NFS panel, and in the older part of the building, the pulls are BG12s that are branded Notifier Fire Systems. The NAs are all Spectralert classics, there are ceiling mount spectralert classic speaker strobes, and in the corridors there are wall mount remote strobes and then above them a bit, there are spectralert classic remote speakers. In the atrium, there are spectralert classic remote strobes on the walls, and on the ceiling there are remote ceiling speakers. In the newer conservatory area, there are spectralert advance speaker strobes, and bg12s with the current branding. Next time I visit, I will get images.
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Seems like it’s a strobe plate or light plate… A red standard horn can be seen inside the small grilles
Annapolis High School (Dearborn Heights, opened circa 1967) - I used an unofficial Facebook page of the high school to identify some of the devices.
Annunciators/panel:
Original system - Unknown, presumably a National Time and Signal Co. (Natsco) 2000-series model
Current system - Unknown, presumably a Natsco 900-series model
Detectors:
Current system - Natsco D900-series smoke detectors
It is not known if there were any detectors in the original system.
Pull stations:
Original system - Unknown, but judging by wall scars, Natsco Type 3500N break-glass models. It appeared that the old pull stations in the gymnasium had those large protective cast-iron covers Natsco was known for back then.
Current system - Natsco 541S models (rebranded Sigcom t-bars)
Notification appliances:
Original system
- Unknown, but judging by a wall plate at the Athletic Entrance and the year the school was established, Natsco Type 411 horns.
- At least two Natsco P806 class change bells survive and are presumably still used.
- In Google Street View, there are at least three bells still installed; two of them are Natsco P808R or P810R models behind grilles, while the third is what I believe to be a Natsco-branded Faraday 10" bell from the 1990s, replacing an original bell. Also, that third bell is missing its recessed grille.
Current system
- Natsco C3 and C4-series horn/strobes and strobes through the building
- One Natsco SG-CWPHS75Z weatherproof horn/strobe next to the Athletic Entrance