In 1799, the brilliant natural philosopher John Robinson invented the siren while trying to find a proper way to power the pipes of an organ with compressed air. With the exception of a few misguided rappers,in our day and age the siren has lost its musical properties. However, the alternating sounds coming of emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks still provide a daily soundtrack for people who live in big cities.
In 1799, the brilliant natural philosopher John Robinson invented the siren while trying to find a proper way to power the pipes of an organ with compressed air. With the exception of a few misguided rappers,in our day and age the siren has lost its musical properties. However, the alternating sounds coming of emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks still provide a daily soundtrack for people who live in big cities. At any time of the day and night, the sound of an approaching police car siren combined with a system of flashing lights spells out the same thing for drivers: the nature of this emergency requires you to move to the side of the road and give way. Throughout history the siren has been applied to varied aspects of everyday life in order to ensure civil defense, from the air raids of the Second World War to the nuclear race of the Cold War and today’s modern household protection systems.
During the Second World War, Great Britain was under the heavy fire of the German Blitzkrieg. The Nazi campaign against the people of London was particularly aggressive and had the purpose of destabilizing this powerful Allied country. Fortunately the British had developed a complex and revolutionary radio-based detection system that allowed prompt warning in the event of a raid. Once the Coastal Defense system was triggered by the incoming Luftwaffe the air raid siren would go off in the city and alert the citizens to take cover in the London underground system. The siren emitted different tonalities for several types of emergencies. Approaching danger was signaled through a “Red Warning”. The air raid siren would yield an alternating pitch that rose and fell between two sounds of different tonalities. The end of an emergency situation was broadcasted through a single continuous tone also known as a “White Warning”. Knowing the difference between the two would sometimes be a matter of life and death and the air raid siren helped preserve human existence during those dangerous times.
The race to acquire nuclear weapons during the Cold War meant that the air raid sirenwas adaptedto a new reality. The possibility of incoming nuclear fallout also lead to the development of a new warning system. A sequence of long and steady sounds separated by equal periods of silence was called “Grey Warning” and it was designed to give people a two minute window to take cover in the event of an approaching nuclear peril. The three beat broadcast of the Morse code letter D meant imminent nuclear danger and it went by the name of “Black Warning”. Most of these early warning devices were manually operated and employed pneumatics. Technological development and the mass production of power equipped the air raid siren with a powerful electric motor.
Today we no longer live in fear of air raids or nuclear attacks butthe siren has remained a powerful warning tool in the event of natural disasters. If a tornado, a tsunami or an earthquake should befall us,the ASAW (Alert Steady Attack Wail) is triggered to signal the impending danger.
During World War II, knowing the difference between the signals of an air raid siren http://sirencosirens.com alerts would help keep you alive. Modern siren http://sirencosirens.com systems give proper warning in the event of a natural disaster.