I guess they upgraded in the early-to-mid 1990s, since those kind of horn/strobe setups are common in early 1990s Simplex systems.
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look for the horn/strobe
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What buildings are these?
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a hotel I’m at right now and a disney ride
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At the National Western Complex, they have LifeAlarm Speakers on 2903 Strobe Plates, that just do Slow Whoop. In fact, last year when I was at the Stock Show, they went off! Didn’t have my camera though. :evil: Pretty Sure the Denver Coliseum has -9838s or -9833s. Maybe even -9846s. A Sports Authority near me has those.
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I remember the NE Aquarium had a pretty interesting system. My grandpa (who lives near there) says the building is very old. The front end was probably added later. The alarms I remember being Simplex 4903 alarms. I also remember there aren’t too many signals in the main area, except for one or two Wheelock NSs. I remembered seeing one of them by the exit leading out to the docks. The pulls were all break glass pulls with Stoppers (I haven’t been there since I knew the difference between a 4251-30 and 4099-9002 the and 2099 version of it). I also remember seeing the remote strobes (probably installed since they didn’t have room for speaker/strobes). I didn’t notice the 4030s or Adaptahorns. Next time I go to there, I will pay close attention to the system. Also, do you know what alarms the sea otter area has? This includes where that seal (or whatever it is) does tricks. I haven’t been there in a LONG time.
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I may have described this system already, but I will give a more detailed overview of it. The system is at the Quality Inn in Brattleboro VT (near where the grandparents on my mom’s side live). The system is probably not all original. Here is the system.
Panel: Original system was probably a Standard panel. New system is probably a Faraday/CP panel.
Pulls: Standard pulls, the only place I have seen them in person. They are still there (at least since I last stayed there).
Alarms: Most alarms are either old Wheelock or Faraday alarms. They are definitely NOT original. I am guessing the building is from the 60s when Standard pulls and the original alarms were put in (probably Standard 350 alarms). Also, some mystery alarms located in the pool room could be original. The alarms I remember doing slow whoop when they went off, but I doubt they were speaker/strobes. I am guessing they could be multi-tone horns/strobes.
There is one Siemens alarm replacement. Maybe the older alarms are Faraday multi-tone horn/strobes if they were doing slow whoop. Siemens is related to Faraday. I think the room my family was in was right outside the Siemens alarm since I remember it having a bright strobe.
The rooms all have Gentex GX-91s in them. Those were probably put in more recently. The alarm went off in the hotel when I was there in 2002 for thanksgiving. The Gentex GX-91 was there.
The pool room has interesting alarms. They look like Wheelock 7002ts, but older and thiner. Does anyone know what I am talking about? I have been trying to figure out who makes them (they could be vintage Wheelock or Standard alarms). Those alarms did continuous and were electromechanical.
There were smokes in every room and in the halls.
Also, the alarms went off at one point while my family was there. It was around 5:30am and suddenly I hear a loud BEEP in code-3. I could also hear a slow whoop from the hallway. When I got into pajamas and pulled on a shirt, I went outside and saw the strobes flashing. My family had to sit in the car while it was cold. When I was outside, I could hear the “Wheelock 7002ts” doing continuous. It was a false alarm, most likely a system malfunction or a smoke. I thought someone bumped into a pull, but those are Standard pulls which are hard to pull, so that’s most likely not the case.
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Sorry about posting again, but I just learned that Standard was bought by Faraday, so that makes perfect sense. Maybe those “7002ts” are actually vintage Faraday alarms.
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Another possibility, is those alarms could be old Wheelock MTs. Maybe the Faraday installers put in Wheelock Signals and then switched to their own signals when the Siemens multi-tone horn was put in. I believe the only Faraday multi-tone horn had a clear strobe, and the alarms there did not have clear strobes. The Faraday installers also probably put in the Gentex GX-91s in. The Standard pulls and “Wheelock 7002ts” are probably the original devices. Apparently, the building is from the early 70s, according to my mom.
I believe Wheelock first started producing the 7001s and 7002s back in the early 70s. The alarms I am trying to identify are NOT 7001s, as I know those have the typical sized strobe. Also, the strobe on this alarm is on top. I am guessing they could be old Standard or Faraday horn/lights or horn/strobes. Did Standard or Faraday make a thinner version of the 7002 series during the 70s?
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I was at a mall I haven’t been to in awhile, the Natick Mall in Natick MA. This place has an interesting set up:
Main Section:
Pulls: Edwards SIGA-278s in some areas, but very few. All had something with big slanted “fire” things on each side.
Alarms: White Edwards Genesis speaker/strobes on the walls with ceiling mount ones in most of the stores and ceiling mount horn/strobes in Macy’s. There were also red Integrities with the “half lens” covers in some places as well as SAE VA4s.
Smokes: Most likely Edwards
New Wing:
Pulls: Simplex 4099-9003s. Also had the same things the Edwards pulls had. One of the handles was pulled slightly on one of the pull (not super far).
Alarms: White ceiling mount TrueAlert speaker/strobes with some white wall mount ones in some places. Stores also had ceiling mount TrueAlert speaker/strobes. I didn’t notice any horn/strobes, but maybe the department store had them.
Smokes: TrueAlarms
Interesting how the mall went with Edwards for the main section but switched to Simplex for the new wing.
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University of Pittsburgh has mostly Cerberus Pyrotronics systems, though I did see Simplex 4903 horn/strobes along with break-glass T-bars in one of the dorm buildings. Here are the alarms in the Cathedral of Learning:
CP MS-51. Looks like they put blue ink on the pull handle.
Wheelock ET70 mounted really low, almost at eye level
Alumni Hall has what appears to be ET70’s with a CP strobe on it. Notice how the strobe is slightly left of center. They’re like that on all of them.
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That’s how it also kind of is with Dan M.'s middle and high school. Most of the school, the parts built between the early 1960s and 1992, have Simplex systems, and originally had an old 4245 or 4246 system with 10-inch Simplex bells and 4251-113 Chevron pulls. In the 1980s, the school was added onto, which had 4251-20 pulls, but I don’t know what the old signals were (they might’ve been 2901-9332 bells). In 1992 the middle school wing was built, with 2901-9333 bells on 4903-9101 strobe plates and 2099-9756 pulls; the panel was also replaced with a Simplex 4002 set on March Time. In 1995 the rest of the school got upgraded, with 2901-9332 bells on newer strobe plates replacing the old bells.
In 2002 the school was added onto, but the 4002 could not support the new wing so they put in a second panel and system: an EST 3 system with Wheelock 10-inch bell/strobes and EST SIGA-278 pulls. The Simplex system is designed to trip the EST system, but if just the EST system is activated first, the Simplex system only goes into Trouble mode. I hope they fixed that!
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That’s actually a CP speaker/strobe model. IDK the model, but just an FYI that it’s not a Wheelock signal w/ a CP strobe slapped on it. No one knows why it’s off-center. Presumeable they wanted it to look mini-horn-like or even System Sensor like w/ the strobe on one side and the speaker on the other. Either way, I’m glad they discontinued it in favor of the new model.
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They had me fooled, I originally thought that it was a slapped-on strobe as well. I admit it is very strange looking, but it is very cool in it’s own way.
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Well, I actually don’t know that much about the system, but I bet that the smokes were addressable. I was just using the picture as a representation.
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At the Deb’s Shop at Silver City Galleria Mall (saw through the window there), they have Simplex TrueAlert horn/strobes, TrueAlarm smokes and 4099-9003 pulls behind Stopper IIs. I don’t know if it’s a separate system or if it is interconnected to the main mall system, which is also a Simplex system but has 2901-9838 horns on 4903-9101 strobe plates, 4251 pulls that say “LOCAL FIRE ALARM” on them and have Stopper IIs over them, and 2098-9201 smokes on 2098-9211 bases.
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Here are my church’s alarms:
Gentex Commander 2s
Has Commander 2 strobes in bathrooms and also one in Cultural Hall 1.
Pulls are Notifier NBG-10s
Smokes are System Sensor 2400 series with…
One System Sensor i3.
Building also has newer Edwards Adaptabels as a doorbell thing, I guess, because there is a button that sets them off outside:
The panel is a Notifier Panel:
Also, here’s a test station in the ceiling. These are spread around the building.
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I went to Yale today to look at the Senior Program for Explo. If anyone remembers I went to Wellesley this past summer for the Intermediate program. Yale has quite a lot of different alarms and I will be dealing with a fire drill at Explo and will be seeing these systems regularly for three weeks this summer. I will be doing the residential program since I am to far away to be a day student. While I am there, I will try to keep in touch on here and explain more about the systems. Here is what I learned today:
We had an open house. We were in a building, Linsly-Chittenden Hall, that had a CP system with MS-501 pulls and Faraday ADA horn/strobes with the vertical strobe. That building has courses that meet in it, but it may not be the building I’m in for courses.
Many of the dorms have voice evac systems with exterior Wheelock E70WPs and most likely Wheelock E70s on the inside. The pulls are Siemens 501s (saw one through the door). These are found in Welch Hall, Phelps Hall, Lawrence Hall, and Farnam Hall. I hope I get to hear one of the systems in person since Siemens voice evac systems are interesting with their poor grammar. Explo also uses a few other dorms that I didn’t notice the systems in.
Durfee Hall has BG-12s (saw through the door) and what are either MTs or Spectras. I saw both on the exterior.
One very rare alarm I saw is one I have only seen at the Wellington ES in my town. I saw what looked like a weathered Fire-Lite “wedge” horn/light on the outside of a building. It most likely used to say “Fire” on it, but it’s old and the “Fire” lettering probably wore off. It has a translucent glass lamp casing. The wedge is pretty wide and is flat in the center. It’s trimmed in red, so it’s probably a fire alarm. It has a red box below the light where the horn goes, probably a Fire-Lite rebranded 4040 or 4050. At first I thought it was part of Farnam Hall, and worried if I was in that dorm I would be dealing with loud electromechanical horns (which I already deal with the Simplex 4040s for fire drills at Belmont High). Thankfully, it looks like it’s a separate chapel that will most likely not be used as a dorm. I am guessing Farnam Hall has a Siemens voice evac system. Also, who knows whether the Fire-Lite alarm is still intact. If it is, there are probably some on the inside of the chapel with BG-6s. The building is called Battell Chapel.
The Yale Art Gallery had Siemens MS-501s and Wheelock E70s. Red wall mount and silver ceiling mount ones. Also, there are these strange detectors that my MS installed in the classrooms when I was in 7th grade. I don’t know whether they are part of the FA system. They are square, with a couple arms hanging from them that are roundish. There are four green lights opposite the arms and a speaker in the middle.
The walk signs project a noise through white Federal Signal SelecTone speakers.
The Starbucks has Spectras and BG-10s.
Overall, I saw some neat systems. For the fire drill, I will most likely get to hear a Siemens vocie evac system or electronic horns if some of the dorms have them. I think I figured out the electromechanical horn is part of a chapel, not a dorm.
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