Ok. Have you moved any topics yet??
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trust me Iv tried and he never got back to me
I think a good thing for this site would be if we could like buy and sell alarms too
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I think that I was the one who got my friend @kalebalarms into the hobby
As for me. The earliest memory of alarms was back in like elementary school since I liked the Spectralert Classics. I do remember not liking the Wheelock devices because of the font and any alarms that had that thin font I didnāt like. As for maybe earliest memory was like in Kindergarten and First Grade, I remember that the alarms went off for a drill but thatās it. This was back in 2012 to 2014. As for earliest memory, Iām not sure if this is a false memory but I do remember seeing a 4903-9221 at my dadās school that I started to remember when I found out that school had them. I started to really get interested in 2015 when I moved schools, I remember hating the alarms at my new school (System Sensor P2Ws and SWs) and I missed the Spectralert Classics back at my old school. I didnāt like these because there white (now I love seeing white devices, especially the older ones). I do remember when the System Sensor L-Series came out (I was in 4th grade when that happened) and wishing that my school get some (that happened). I joined the community in 2020 after I decided to make a YouTube account. Afterwards I got my first alarm in February of 2021 being a Edwards 270A-SPO then in March receiving my 4903-9176. I got my first panel in May of 2021 which is a 4006 and I got that at a very low price of $34 off of eBay with $70 shipping. Ended up getting a AFP-400 in 2022 and couldnāt get it to work until 2023 because of a CPU power cable in needed which I found another enthusiast near me to do it. Now Iām standing with 4 panels and a big collection with some rare stuff like the White EH, CWS1T and Ceiling UMMT.
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Yes, and then we may have lawsuits for violation of COPPA and, of course, little kids who will probably be annoying and profane the forums.
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Actually, @SER_Safety is already on this forum but has only posted once, years ago.
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Wow, I never realized that!
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For me it was back around 2016 at my old elementary school. The signals there are Wheelock NS-24MCWās. I got fascinated with the strobes flashing immediately after the output sound of the horn. The horn output was loud as hell. Over in my area there arenāt any horn strobes or strobe onlys in the classrooms, only in the hallways. Fast forward to 2019 in my middle school, we had bells or as I like to call them āFire Bellsā. It was a weird coding system. Going into 2022, I wanted to find out the models of the alarms in the middle school and sure enough, they were Simplex 2901-9833 āfire bellsā. I have been watching S.E.R Safety and 4050-80 and since 2022, I have been hooked ever since.
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Part of it was the fear that I used to have, the other part of it was just my obsessions with random systems.
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I would say that the thing that got me most into the fire alarm hobby is my local fire department. In elementary school, they would visit us every year and talk about fire safety. We also would sometimes take field trips to the fire station where we would learn even more about fire safety and how they do things. This was cool, but the thing that got me the most interested was the RV. They had an RV that they would take to all of the schools to demonstrate fire safety with. In there, the demonstrated things like electrical hazards, escape plans, etc. They also had a fog machine to demonstrate the evacuation out the window.
Among all of this, was the fire alarm. They had a simple 24v power supply hooked up to a Firelite BG-8, a System Sensor Spectralert Classic horn strobe, and a MASS series remote strobe in the bedroom which we would escape out of. They actually asked the students to volunteer to pull the pull station to teach them how they work and what to do in a fire. Of course, everyone wanted to do it. I never actually got to do it but it still sparked my interest in that previously terrifying but interesting technology.
This was also a confusing sound to me because, before this, I had only experienced fire alarms on continuous. For some reason, it seems like my area didnāt adopt code 3 at all. They donāt really care about your fire alarm coding. This is also part of what made me first realize that there is more to fire alarms than what first meets the eye.
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Same YouTube started it for me to
Iād say my autisim is what got me in the hobby.
As a kid, I always remembered the fire drills at school, and how loud the alarms were.
I didnāt really fall into the rabbit hole until I saw NewAgeServerAlarmās videos on fire alarms. The 1st one I ran into was ā2903 with red bulbā around 2012/2013. Along with thesdx and some other channels that are inactive/gone, they got me interested in fire alarms.
I didnāt start collecting fire alarms seriously until 2023, and since then it has exploded.
My bank account does not like meā¦
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Really? Youāre a relative newcomer to the life safety community huh? Well welcome: we hope you enjoy your stay!
Thatās for sure! Jeezā¦
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LOL! Thats why I donāt collect alarms. I hopefully save it for a good College education.
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You do realize that you can technically do both with enough proper management & common sense, right?
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It started at Williamson PK-8 (ex-Riverside Elementary School) in Williamson, W.Va. I first started Kindergarten when I was 6 years old in 2013.
One day, 6 year-old me was in the Special Education room for some reason. I overheard teachers having a conversation about the upcoming fire drill. However, I had no idea what the term, āfire drill,ā meant; therefore, I was in for a big surprise.
Suddenly, the EST G1RF-HDVM in the room produced itās signature loud as f**k screeching noise and the strobe flashed. 6 year-old me was terrified (thus why I made an inside joke of them being my worst nightmare) and was quick to get out the building. I was crying where I was terrified. I vividly remember this drill as well.
During future fire drills at that school, I always would cover my ears from the classroom all the way outside when I uncovered them. The alarms were so loud that you could hear them so many feet from the building, and I was pretty far out.
After awhile, I was 7 or 8 years old, I grew curious as to what the alarms at my elementary school were. I stumbled upon @U8oL0ās 2012 Fire Alarm Collection video where he went through every device in his collection, pulling basically every single pull station he had, notably even a SIGA-278, which were the pulls on my elementary schoolās system. The most notable device, to me, was his EST Genesis G1RF-HDVM, which he slipped up the model number saying, āGVRF-HDVMā instead of the correct number.
From there, it spiralled into my obsession with fire alarms. I watched more and more fire alarm videos, notably those by older content creators such as @Destin, @NewEnglandElevators, @weatherdan882002, and @NewAgeServer just to name a few.
However, I started out collecting smoke alarms that I would get my grandma to buy me at Walmart in South Williamson, KY. My original collection consisted of a Kidde i9040, a Family Gard FG200, and a still in-the-box First Alert slimline Photoelectric detector that our landlord brought over. Unfortunately, I lost my original collection. I additionally watched classic @gamealarm and āRob DeMilleā videos of smoke alarms along with fire alarm videos, thus my interest in both smoke and fire alarms.
One time before I was in Kindergarten, the Kidde KN-COSM-B with the older test button and newer logo went off in the hallway of our apartment. I was scared and crying of course. The dash B has since been a childhood alarm for me along with the G1RF-HDVM, and they still are.
I didnāt get into the collecting gig fire alarm wise until I was in the 10th grade at Jefferson County High School, where I obtained my first three fire alarms: a Siemens SE-MC-CW (Wheelock E60-24MCC-FW), ZH-MC-R (ZNS-24MCW-FR), and a Faraday 8700-S. My collection as it was didnāt start exploding into what it is now until I started college in 2025.
Now I own some childhood alarms, like my GE EST SIGA-278, which is the exact variant my elementary school had. Plus, the majority of my current collection comes from WSCC-owned buildings that recently had their systems replaced. Iām happy to say that I am glad to be where I am now in terms of being a fire alarm collector. Happy 2026, eārrone.
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To be honest- YouTube recommended got me into fire alarms! My main interests are in HVAC, elevators, and technology (as I had developed those interests from an early age.) By 2015, I had taught myself how to use YouTube, and began looking up HVAC and elevator videos- until I came across thesdxās āMy Fire Alarm Collection (2.0)ā video (IIRC.) Then, I got deeper and deeper into the hobby, becoming one of my new side interests (alongside the ones I had just listed!)
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Iām actually interested in technology as well. Iām pretty tech savvy sometimes.
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