Hurricane 130

Produced by

Alerting Communicators of America (ACA) from 1968 to 1981. The hurricane 130 has originaly a square horn similar to the federal signal thunderbolt. it has changed over the years to a circular horn because ACA could be sued for stealing the thunderbolt design. many square horn hurricanes protypes has been made and numerous were coded with solenoids allowing it to do: pulse and hilo (ACA dont use alternate wail for sirens) they sold many for chemical plants where a different signal could be used to highlight which sector of the plant an emergency was occurring in, or what type of emergency was occurring.The South African one in question was a one of a kind prototype that Jim invented. This one had a special controller that allowed for DC current to be run to the AC motor, allowing for rapid slowdown of the chopper, meaning it was capable of producing the yelp signal. Because the chopper was only 8 inches in diameter, running DC current to it didn't cause any secondary problems such as heating issues. This prototypical unit was Jim's demo model for years, and I believe it's the one seen in the 1979 ACA tape (19:41 in video). now the channel is deleted we waiting for someone reupload the video

Historical Context

The ACA Hurricane was designed as a response to the growing need for effective emergency warning systems during the Cold War era, contributing significantly to civil defense efforts.

While many Hurricane sirens have been replaced over the years by modern electronic sirens, the only unit thats is fully running and its up is on Milwaukee fire dpt with its blower dying