I never have. Only ever heard voice evac on Youtube.
Yes. I heard our Walmart’s fire alarm system go off 2 years ago. It was a Wheelock SafePath SP40S system, and It did a five second 1100 Hz tone, followed by standard message 3 http://www.cooperindustries.com/content/dam/public/safety/notification/Resources/Media%20Files/Sp40s%203.wav. The strobes were all synchronized. They were testing the system.
I havent yet
My middle school fire alarm was a later 4100U slow-whoop voice evac.
I’ve heard “classic” (like probably a 4003) Simplex slow-whoop voice evacuation systems in malls before.
Neither had that pre-whoop chime IIRC.
I remember being in Trumball mall with the fire alarms going off when I was probably 3 or 4, which, based on a Youtube video, was apparently a slow-whoop EST system with 892-like speaker-strobes.
I’ve heard a slow whoop (either Notifier or Fire-Lite), with the Fire-Lite female voice message. It was a Notifier system, with Gentex speaker/strobes. It was at school in the gymnasium building. Some kid “fell” against the pull station. May of you have heard this story a few times. There aren’t many other buildings that I would normally be in with voice evac in my area. I was very satisfied to hear that voice evac, especially considering school was almost over.
I take it you didn’t have regular fire drills?
No! If you look at some of my other posts in other threads, you will notice that I complain about this a lot. My school has a unique fire alarm system, I would love to hear it. I have never been through one fire drill at this school. The principal thinks it is a waste of time.
No fire drills? That’s illegal.
I know, I think they used to do a few per academic year (less than the required 10 per year), but they’ve stopped since then. I’m not sure exactly why they stopped, but I know that there were a problem with the system last school year (I think NAC fault).
I guess since we are high schoolers, the principal thinks that we are old enough to get out on our own. I don’t agree, because there are a lot of buildings, some with two floors, and the evacuation process can be confusing. I didn’t even know that most of the buildings are supposed to evacuate to the very front of the school until one of my teachers decided to conduct his own little fire drill last school year. I was disappointed to see my gym class evacuate to the football field, when the arrow on the evacuation map pointed to the parking lot.
I have only heard a few voice-evac/speaker systems; all of them Simplex. They include South Shore Mall (older Slow Whoop), Brockton Hospital (various different chime tones) and the middle school near my house when they used to have a Simplex system (newer Slow Whoop and female default voice message.) The mall and school systems weren’t very loud at all; I was even standing right near one of the speakers at the mall and was surprised by the low volume. The hospital was a bit louder, but that may be because the alarm tones would also sound on the intercom speakers.
Is you’r area full of simplex alarms?
I never have. I almost did the one year at Ocean City, MD. We arrived just one day late because I heard someone talking about the fire alarm going off the night before. And also the panel was in supervisory/trouble all week due to a beam detector in the pool atrium. I saw a Simplex van on site a few of those days. It was a Simplex 4100 retrofit set up as a zoned application, with older 2903 series speakers and strobes. The whole building had quite an interesting set up, but I don’t go to Ocean City anymore. I always wished that the fire alarms would go off when I’m at the hotel on vacation. That’d be the best opportunity to hear voice evacuation but chances are slim to none I’d hear it anytime soon.
My aunts building has an EST-3 with voice evac, on EST Genesis and Integrity Speaker’s and Strobes and Speaker Strobes.
It went off once only because the janitor accidentally pulled it while trying to clean it, (I know, weird right?) The stations were EST SIGA-278’s and I only have a photo of the pull in the main entrance and an NA in the Hallway (behind a stopper)
Some jurisdictions do not require alarms for fire drills
We do not have fire drills of any kind at my school.
do you mean Drills
No, I meant fire drills. Fallin86 said that some jurisdictions do not require the alarms to be sounding for a fire drill, so I told him/her(lol) that my school does not have fire drills at all.
No, it was abc who said that, not me.
Sorry! It was “abc2VE” who asked that.
I have heard voice evacuation systems in person before on 2 rare occasions. The first time I heard it was in a high rise apartment complex we used to live at in the heart of Downtown Arlington. It was pretty much all EST. Genesis Speakers in the apartments, strobes in the mailroom and close to the elevator in each floor and the speaker strobes in the lobby, the hallways in every floor as well as in the amentities. They all went off around December 2010. Around 2012 just as I was waiting for my bus in Reston Town Center, I heard the alarms goin off just next door to the movie theater. It had some kind of EST slow whoop tone and it was pretty much ceiling mount speakers probably the Wheelock E90s. And they were slightly a bit loud, but not too bad though. One of the stores had a Wheelock LSM remote strobe and the other had an RSS. When the strobes stopped flashing, it was doin a chime tone every few seconds to a minute. Very strange…