Just keep posting in this topic. It will keep the forums more clutter free. We only create new threads after 300 posts if the topic is a sticky.
That’s good.
Anyways, yesterday I checked out the Field House and Administration buildings. The only thing slightly different I found was in the Administration building, one of the VA4 horn/strobes had an “X” written on the strobe with some kind of marker. I wonder why this was done? I have two theories about this…
- This was done by a vandal.
- The horn/strobe had died, or only the strobe had “burnt out,” and the “X” was drawn on by the people working on the alarm system (they test the campus alarm systems during Spring Break).
Either way, if it is the latter, I’m sure that this summer they will probably replace it with an identical horn/strobe. The current one there has a 30-candela strobe, all new ones installed on campus since early 2007 have 75-candela strobes. That room with the Simplex 4051+4050-80 in it was locked again, so I didn’t see if it was replaced yet. Other than that, nothing new to report so far.
Just remembered what they are they are the EST SIGA addressable smokes
the older part of my school has a simplex 2001 with 4251-20s and the signals are simplex 2903 light plates and 2901-9806s coded to 90 bpm marchtime. some of the dead 2903 are being replaced with wheelock as horn strobes and some of the dead 4251s are being replaced with bg-12s
my old school in florida had three parts. a part from 1956, a part from 1970 and a part from 2000. the 1956 part had an old coded system(I know this because i have seen several old photos of the old part). the 1956 part had old coded edwards pulls and the signals were old edwards bells. the coded system was replaced in 1974 with a simplex 4208(not 100% sure)
with simplex 4251-30s and had simplex 4051s on 4050-85s(This simplex system is still there today). the 1970 part had an old faraday system with unknown pulls and old flush mount horns(unknown model). the 1970 part was replaced with a notifier panel with nbg-10s and spectralerts :x . the 2000 part has a gamewell panel with adressable century pulls and the signals are wheelock MT-lsm.
Yesterday, we had to do some physical testing in the nurses office during our gym period. I found out the nurses office has an Edwards groan 892 horn only.
Sorry, NewAgeServer, but I couldn’t help myself.
On Monday (5/18) and Tuesday (5/19), there was biology testing upstairs, so only my 1st period Algebra class had to be in a different location (the rest of my classes were in their normal locations). We were assigned to room 120, which was one of the biology rooms. It had an EST Genesis horn/strobe w/o the fire marking. So far, I’m aware that my high school has at least 9 Genesis horn/strobes.
School: Simplex 2901-9838 on 4903-9101, true alerts, 2902 speakers on -9101 plates in gym and auditorium, 1 2901-9806 on 4050-80 in gym, 2901-9806 and 2901-9838 outside.
Today I stopped over at North Junior High School to say hi to my old middle school principal (back when I was at East Junior High). Like West, South and East Junior High, this school is pretty old (and like East Junior High School, it began construction in 1957 and opened in 1959). The fire alarm system is also similar, except for a major thing.
They have a REALLY old Gamewell system like EJHS has, complete with the same pulls (those old cira-1920s Gamewell dual-action pulls), but the signals are the main difference. They have these super-old silver flush-mount Faraday horns. I know they’re Faraday because it said so on the label. The alarms are completely flat against the wall and the grille is basically vertical lines, with a black sounder plate behind it. I bet those horns are pretty loud and scary, like the Federal Signal horns at EJHS were!
Similarly, the clock system is a Simplex/IBM, with a newer Simplex 6400 time panel, but the clocks are a mix of the older IBM types, and some Simplex clocks from the 1970s and 1980s. The bells are 6-inch IBM bells that are blackish-brown, and the outdoor bells are 10-inch IBM bells.
I also checked out the Raymond Elementary School across the street, which as I mentioned is the sister school to the Davis K-8 School I’ve mentioned numerous times. Their system’s identical to the Davis K-8 school’s alarm system (Simplex 2001 system with 4051+4050-80s and 4251-30 pulls), but there are a few differences. For one, some of the 2098-9806 test stations are ceiling-mounted (all the ones at the Davis school are on the wall). Another is that the 4051 horns are mounted so that the front grilles line up with the 4050-80 light plates for a flush-mounted appearance. I also didn’t see any replacement pulls, but some of the 4251-30s that had the glass missing had it recently replaced (one of them had the “BREAK GLASS” version with no “PULL HANDLE DOWN” on it). Similarly, at one exit, some kind of rewiring must’ve occured during the panel replacement (from either a 4247 or 4208 to the 2001 panel), similar to that alarm I mentioned at the Davis K-8 school (the install job with the 4051 on two backboxes onto the 4050-80 light plate), but the main difference in that is that both the 4051+4050-80 are on a single red backbox that is the same size as the light plate, with the conduit leading from the top and bottom of the backbox to the 4251-30 pull underneath. It looks nicer compared to the rewiring job at the Davis school! And another difference is that while the Davis K-8 school’s system does Slow March Time, the Raymond school’s system is on Continuous! (I didn’t hear it go off, but a teacher mentioned how annoying the alarms were and said it was a long continuous noise.) All in all, it is a very neat fire alarm system, though I like the Davis K-8 school’s alarm system better.
Another thing to note, their bell system is also identical (the 6-inch Simplex bells behind grilles for most part, while the gym and outdoors have 10-inch bells behind grilles), but while one of the old outdoor bells at the Davis school was taken out and plated over, at the Raymond at that spot they still have a bell, but it’s a 10-inch Edwards Adaptabel! I’m pretty sure it replaced a Simplex 10-inch bell at one point. And they also don’t have a modular building anymore either.
Elementary and High School
U-MMT
Siemens speaker/strobe
Middle School
NS
Siemens speaker/strobe
College
AS
U-MMT
34T
Mechanical horn with SAE light plate (might be 4050)
Siemens speaker/strobe
other alarms I can’t identify
Here are some fire alarm pics from the Raymond Elementary School, where some of my friends went.
NOTE: These pics were NOT taken at the Davis K-8 school. This is an identical elementary school with the same floorplan and an identical alarm system built in my town at the same time as the Davis school was. Davis school alarm pics go in my “Fire alarm pics from my elementary school!” thread…
<URL url="Fire alarm pics from my elementary school! (Updated 9/15!)
With that said, on with the pics of West Springfield Elementary, uh, I mean the Raymond school’s fire alarms…
As expected, the signals are Simplex 4051 horns on 4050-80 light plates. But what’s the main difference? The 4051s are installed as if they were flush-mounted! Not so at the Davis. Pull stations are, as usual, Simplex 4251-30s. For those wondering, yes, they have the same bells as the Davis school does (the bells are behind those gray grilles).
BTW, at the Davis, that same area is where the 4051 on two backboxes on the 4050-80 is located!
The outdoor school bells are the same kind too, the 10-inch Simplex bells behind grilles…
But one of them is actually a 10-inch Edwards Adaptabel! I assume it replaced a Simplex bell that died (at the Davis, that area has NO bell!)
The outdoor Gamewell city master box. Identical to the Davis school’s version, but at least this one still has the number plate intact!
The Simplex graphic annunciator in the main lobby. Note that it and the alarm are positioned closer to the pull station and school bell, while the Davis places them further apart from each other in that lobby. The 4251-30 is still intact there too, while the Davis has replaced the one there with a 2099-9103 pull. I’m also sure the Raymond has a Simplex 2001 panel too, give the annunciator style and the presence of the 2098-9806 test stations, but the main difference is that the Raymond’s system does Continuous (as I’ve been told), while the Davis does Slow March Time (maybe the installers decided to put a March Time card in the 2001 panel at the Davis when installing the panel in the 1980s to make it more unique than the Raymond).
This 4251-30 has the break-glass part completely missing, and the pegs to hold the frame have been broken off too! Maybe the alarm was pulled at one point, and rather than go to the trouble of replacing the glass, they just got rid of it and converted it to a single-action pull station (at first I thought it was a 4251-20 until I got a closer look!)
When I previously saw this system last year, quite a few of the 4251-30s were missing the glass, but many of those, including the one pictured here, had new glass put in. It says “BREAK GLASS” on it like on the 2099 and 4099 break-glass pulls, so that is what made me realize the glass is replacement, 4251-30s had it reading “BREAK GLASS PULL HANDLE DOWN.” So far I did not see any newer pulls here, or any newer/replacement alarms.
Pretty interesting, huh?
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Cool!
It’s an interesting system, like Davis’s. Also, as I mentioned, the 4051+4050-80s I saw in person were installed like that.
I am not trying to be off-topic or rude but do you know what it’s time to do? It is time to create a new thread because this topic has gone beyond 300 posts.
Uh, Collin said that we can just keep posting here, to keep it more clutter-free; only sticky threads will apply to the 300-post rule.
It’s actually time to let the moderators moderate …
Wiley you really should not quote other people like that. If Collin want’s to post that he said it… let him do it.
I just was at Austin High for our 15th Year Reunion tour. I snapped som FA pics
This is one of the majority of smokes, the Simplex 2098-9201 & 2098-9211(or equivalent) base. Some have the larger base that sticks out.
One of the many 2901-9838s on the 4903-9501 plates. Unsure of the exact model of the strobe itself.
Here’s a TrueAlarm that replaced one of the 2098-9201s. There was another one in the building.
Another 9838+9501
There are also 9838s on 9501s with the 4904-9105 strobe.
Another 2098-9201. I did see an SLK-24F on third also.
Simplex Beam Smoke.
Another 9838±9105±9501.
Here’s a white TrueAlert that replaced a -9838+9501.
Here’s a TrueAlert on a -9501 plate. Notice how the -9105 has been removed.
Close-Up
A P*R SpectrAlert Advance located in a section of the building that was finished recently.
I can remember the panel having a -00 at the end of its model, and figured it was a 4100 rather that the 4020. This confirmed my thought and memory.
Top of the 4100 Classic, showing the operator interface panel. The principal, who was our tour guide, said it was his duty to come to the panel if the FA system activated and look at the display.
Here’s one of the original stations. This is in the Annex building’s tunnel. We have the main building, then the Annex which houses the wood shop, mechanics class, graphics, music and Buildings and Grounds. It has the -9838s and System Sensor 2400 smokes. I thought I could see a FIRE HORN, but it was in a darkened section of the hallway. By this time my camera’s batteries were dead so I couldn’t get pics of the 2400s.
Also they put TrueAlerts in a majority of the classrooms that there weren’t any originally. Boy, it must be something to hear -9838s, TrueAlerts and Advances all at once!
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Oops! This is supposed to be the pic:
Also, the 9838s have the loud ERRRRR! sound like darkness7475’s.
Also forgot to snap a pic of the pulls. They’re the 2099-9756 Dual Action T-Bars.
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New school, so, new alarms:
Commander 1s
Silent Knight 5208
Bronco T-Bar Pulls
These are schools, but not ones I attended; I DO know some of the teachers and students attending them though, so it counts in a way to me…
The first set of pics are from North Junior High School. This is the sister school to East Junior High School (where I went for middle school). Being as their alarm system is still the original from 1957, this should be a real treat!
These are the alarms. They’re OLD flush-mount Faraday horns of some kind. The grille kinda resembles the one used on their newer explosion-proof horn. Some are gray like this…
…and others are red. They look kinda similar to the old Federal Signal/Auth Electric horns at East Junior High School this way.
You can tell this is an old one: the grille says “SPERTI-FARADAY,” just like Dan D.(7002t)'s Faraday Type 2! Maybe this is the flush-mount version?
The pull stations are these old Gamewell ones; the same kind as East Junior High School has. They were mounted up pretty high, and they are located at some exits in addition to the usual hallway/large room locations.
The school bells are these old 6-inch IBM bells. These are identical to the bells at Dan M.'s elementary school!
Another gray Faraday horn and an IBM bell with a clock inbetween them. No, you’re not seeing things, that clock does indeed have an IBM logo on it! It’s essentially the same type of Simplex clock I’ve known all my life (many of the schools I attended had these same-style Simplex clocks), but with an IBM logo on it instead! Even the custodian here accidentally mistook it for a Simplex clock, but I told him about how IBM used to have their own clock/fire alarm division until Simplex bought it out. I actually had no idea those Simplex/IBM clocks actually dated back to the 1950s! (I thought they came out in the mid-1960s or something.)
The other clocks are the older round ones with the thicker hands, and a couple of Simplex clocks. The master time panel is a Simplex 6400 (now why am I not surprised?)
I also stopped off at the Raymond Elementary school (sister school to the Davis K-8 school) across the street and got a few more photos of their fire alarm system:
An old Simplex mechanical heat detector in the cafetorium, just like the Davis’s cafetorium!
This is in the music classroom. This Simplex 4051+4050-80 is missing the lens, just like one of the library alarms at the Davis school! Luckily the music teacher is aware of that vandalized alarm, but he says it could be a while before they fix it. (My guess is they will probably just use the lens from another discarded 4050-80, or they will replace the alarm altogether.) But it’s not like at the Davis school’s music classroom, where their old alarm actually died and needed to be replaced (they slapped a Wheelock NS horn/strobe onto the old 4050-80 light plate).
Simplex 2098-9806 test station in the music classroom.
The Simplex clock in the music classroom. Again like most of the schools I’ve attended, it’s those square ones they made from the 1950s to the late 1970s.
The door to the electrical room where the school’s fire alarm panels (a Simplex 4010 system tied into a Simplex 4208) are located. It’s a good thing they put up a sign that the room contains the alarm panel; is it some kind of code now? (Many buildings I see have signs like this, in newer ones the signs were put up when the building was built, in others they are newer ones.) But at least the firefighters will know where the school’s alarm panels are located!
Another shot of one of the rare version of the 4050-80 with white “FIRE” lettering, but this time I used the flash.
Close-up shot of a Simplex 4255 heat detector. Even though it’s essentially a rebranded Chemtronics 500-series heat sensor, you can kinda make out “SIMPLEX TIME RECORDER CO.” on part of the label.
Detail shot of one of the ear-raping 10-inch Simplex bells in the school’s main gymnasium. IDK the model number, but I’m willing to bet it’s in the 40XX range.
The cages on the pulls are pretty much like Simplex’s version of the Stopper II from the 1970s onward, except these were mainly designed for the pulls to withstand objects being hurled into the air in a room where something like this would occur (i.e. a gymnasium). It seems today, Simplex doesn’t use those cages very often anymore and now opts for the Stopper II (the sounderless versions for when putting them in a gymnasium.)
I now pretty much have the feeling the break-hammers on two of these 4251-30 pulls were deliberately broken off so if a ball hits the cage, the hammer doesn’t go smashing into the glass. Not a bad idea, IMO, but what if someone actually needs to pull the alarm? They could cut themselves if using their fist, so they’d probably just find another object perfect enough for it (like a drumstick or a thick pen or something).
…while this pull station already has the glass broken, while the hammer remains intact. In some ways I am a little proud to see the cage battered up like that a bit; that proves it is doing what it was installed for in the first place!
The bell and 4051+4050-80 above this pull. I’m surprised the old alarms are still intact! You’d think in a gymnasium with no cages on these alarms, they would’ve taken some damage by now…
…like this alarm in the small gymnasium did. A detail shot on what’s exactly in that hole 
Quite a few of the Simplex 4251-30s in the school are like this, with replacement glass (I can tell the replacement glass because of how it only says “BREAK GLASS,” no “PULL HANDLE DOWN” underneath). I remember last year several of the pulls had the glass missing, so one would assume they replaced it in that time. I actually did the school a favor and moved the door blocking it out of the way to make it more easily accessible.
Some others still have the old glass intact. There’s also a little knick in this 4051+4050-80’s lens. It seems pretty common in this area for them to put both the bell and fire alarm next to each other in these schools.
The Simplex 4051+4050-80 in what was once the All-Purpose Room, but now it’s a classroom of some sort (the Davis K-8 school’s All-Purpose Room is now a computer lab). The light looks kinda banged up there. I guess the students in there couldn’t stand the noise the alarm makes!
The school bell in the classroom. If I were working here I’d probably ask to have that bell muffled up!
The 4251-30 pull also in that classroom. I find it a little silly when they built this room they actually took the liberty of putting an alarm, pull and bell in a rather small room…
…when there’s a 4051+4050-80, AND a school bell, AND a pull station right outside it! Honestly, was the architect thinking this was going to be a school for students that have hearing difficulties or something?
Sorry, I went a little crazy there. This is definitely an install job where they took it too far, IMO.
Any questions/comments?
Whoa, those are unusual. Sadly I looked at the close up and it doesn’t say anything under “Type”. It’s unknown what model these are. Good thing u have a close up pic now.
Even more unusual. That looks like the handle from a Gamewell masterbox. I didn’t know Gamewell made pulls like this. Are they coded pulls?