Over the weekend, my school jazz band attended the Brandon Jazz Festival. The festival was held on the Brandon University campus. There were a wide variety of systems installed.
The performances were held in the School of Music. I don’t know what panel they had there (it was behind a locked door in the basement), but there was a Potter annunciator that looked like it was replacing an Edwards 6500 annunciator. The NAs were mostly 6-inch Edwards 439D bells, with a few Mircom 6-inch bells here and there. The pull stations were the original Edwards 270-SPOs. The smokes were those old BRK detectors from the '70s.
Across the rest of the campus, there were a variety of Simplex, EST and Notifier systems. It looked like the newest system was on the male dormitory, since it had a few weatherproof Truealerts on the outside!
But perhaps the most interesting system was at the auditorium. It appeared to have a 1960’s Simplex system! Again, I didn’t see the panel, and it may have been replaced with a new one. The signals were Simplex STR red 6-inch bells, all of which were installed directly above Simplex 4251-1 pull stations (which, amazingly, all had their original glass rods in them!). A few of the bells were replaced with Mircom 6-inch bells, and a few of the pull stations were replaced with Edwards 270-SPO pulls.
The elementary school my siblings used to attend has a rather interesting system.
The panel is a small, red Simplex 2001 located at the main entrance.
The detectors are Simplex whiffle-ball detectors.
Most of the signals are Simplex 2901-9833’s behind 2903 plates.
In the gymnasium, there are unmarked Simplex 2904 strobes. There are overhead speaker horns that play a voice evacuation message.
In the cafeteria, there are unmarked 2904 strobes, and Simplex 2901-9838’s on 4903-9101 plates.
The -9838 + 4903 combos are also present in some of the hallways.
One of the 2903’s had a -9838 behind it. Another had an Amseco motor horn! These were probably replacement devices.
I’ve never seen the system in action (narrowly missed two fire drills ). But from what my brother told me, the 2903’s are strobes and the signal coding is continuous, as is commonplace throughout Connecticut.
This little setup is in the Sports Authority at Gurnee Mills, the mall in my area. The Sports Authority itself has Wheelock 7002t horns and Fire-Lite BG-10 pulls.
Rest of the Mall:
Hallways and Corridors:
Simplex 4904-9105 stobes and ceiling mount TrueAlert horn/strobes.
Smaller Stores:
Ceiling mount TrueAlert Horns
Fire-Lite BG-10 or BG-12 Pull stations
Kohls and Macy’s:
Ceiling mount Specralert Advanced horn/strobes
Fire-Lite BG-12 Pull Stations
Sears Grand:
EST Genisis wall mount horn/strobes and ceiling mount remote strobes.
EST 278 series pull stations.
So today I went to Anime Boston! I got my con badge at the Sheraton Hotel that is near the Hynes Convention Center and Prudential Center. They have a Simplex system of some sort; probably a 4100-series panel, as I saw a 4603-9101 LCD annunciator at the main entrance. In the main lobby, pulls are Simplex 2099-9761 dual-action T-bars, and smoke detectors are the older TrueAlarms. But the alarm signals are Space Age VA4 speaker/strobes!
The second floor, where I got my badge, had horizontal 4903 speaker/strobes and break-glass 4251-30 pulls! One of them had the frame and hammer removed and a Stopper II over it, and there was also a 2099 break-glass pull, with the hammer broken off and a Stopper II cover as well.
For those who don’t know, the Hynes Convention Center has an EST voice-evac system. Didn’t see any panels obviously, but they probably have an EST-3 system or similar. The alarms are Genesis speaker/strobes, including at least one remote strobe in one hall. Pulls are EST SIGA-278 dual-action stations with Stopper II covers.
In one of the casinos in Detroit that I was cutting across, I saw a rather random system. Near the casino part there were newer addressable simplex t bars and those weird stoppers where you have to pull down the cover. Near the stairwells there were Gamewell centuries with regular stoppers. In the hallways there were simplex truealarms. Throughout the entire building there were a mix of simplex truealerts, truealert speaker strobes, simplex 4903s and 4903 speakers strobes. There were a few 4903 horn only models near the elevators. The horns and horn strobes seemed to be in one area and the speaker strobes another. I think this place was more than a casino though. Again, I was just cutting across to go somewhere. The people mover had multiple outdoor Wheelock rss and the newer MTs. There were system sensor i3s and truealarms right next to each other in the skywalk tunnel. Strange! On the outsides of some buildings there were simplex truealerts. I found one next to a Wheelock ehs DL1 that was slightly lower. This is probably the first time I visited DEtroit and actually payed attention, they sure love their simplex!
The newest wing of my college has these unusual TrueAlert speaker/strobes. Interestingly, the “FIRE” lettering is not a sticker, and the font seems to be the same as the regular TrueAlerts. I can’t seem to find anything about these covers on the Simplex website, so I’m thinking they might be specially-made.
There are requirements that dictate at what height a strobe can be mounted. I wonder if this is the result of somebody not realizing how long vertically the TrueAlert Speaker/Strobes are and then cutting holes and running wires at locations that would be incorrect to mount the alarm normally. Maybe they were originally planning on putting horn/strobes in?
The “Fire” text on those alarms do look like the same font that’s on the “normal” ones with the only difference being the kerning though.
One of my aunts is now living at the Caffrey Towers apartment complex, located not too far from my old college. It was built in 1971, and both towers share the same alarm system I believe. The “B” building had an EST fire alarm panel of some sort next to a really old annunciator that probably isn’t used anymore.
The old pull stations are still intact. The “A” building, where my aunt lives, has the old Couch pull stations that resemble the coded models, but have a keyhole where the coding number would go. But there are also a few Couch F1G Chevron pulls, which are also the main pulls in the “B” building, from what I’ve seen.
None of the old alarms are intact, to my knowledge. In the “A” building I saw some Wheelock MT4-24-WM horn/strobes, rather sparsely placed too. The apartment unit my aunt lives in has a Wheelock MIZ-24-LSM mini-horn/strobe, and I assume the other units have them too. I’m not sure what the old alarms were; probably they were older Vibratone horns or something.
In the main entrance to the “A” building I saw what looked like a Pyrotector smoke detector, probably also original. I also saw what I think was a System Sensor i3, and the elevators using System Sensor 2400 detectors for elevator recall. Other areas I saw used those old (late 70s/early 80s) ESL smoke detectors with the thermal heat sensor, rebranded by Edwards; they were probably installed in the early 80s or something.
It is kind of an interesting system, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it got replaced soon, since the apartment complex did look a little run down on the inside, as if it needed a renovation.
AW CMON
How is it big?!
I can only make it so small. The image resizer could shrink it up to this. Either let this go or don’t because I can’t shrink it anymore.
rsz_cerberus_pyrotronics_panelhttps://cdn.thefirepanel.com/legacy/3092_6fd21bb48ddcf136c9e6c757ef70e19b.jpg
Well since I shrunk them, heres the other 2 pictures:
rsz_cerberus_pyrotronics_u-mmt-s17https://cdn.thefirepanel.com/legacy/3092_6fd21bb48ddcf136c9e6c757ef70e19b.jpg
rsz_cerberus_pyrotronics_ms-51https://cdn.thefirepanel.com/legacy/3092_6fd21bb48ddcf136c9e6c757ef70e19b.jpg
). But from what my brother told me, the 2903’s are strobes and the signal coding is continuous, as is commonplace throughout Connecticut.
