Siren (noisemaker)

A siren is a loud noise making device. Civil defense sirens are mounted in fixed locations and used to warn of natural disasters or attacks. Sirens are used on emergency service vehicles such as ambulances, police cars and fire trucks. There are two general types: pneumatic and electronic.

Many fire sirens (used for calling the volunteer fire fighters) serve double duty as tornado or civil defense sirens, alerting an entire community of impending danger. Most fire sirens are either mounted on the roof of a fire station, or on a pole next to the fire station. Fire sirens can also be mounted on or near government buildings, on tall structures such as water towers, as well as in systems, where several sirens are distributed around a town for better sound coverage. Most fire sirens are single tone and mechanically driven by electric motors with a rotor attached to the shaft. Some newer sirens are electronically driven by speakers, though these are not as common.

Fire sirens are often called "fire whistles", "fire alarms", or "fire horns". Although there is no standard signaling of fire sirens, some utilize codes to inform firefighters of the location of the fire. Civil defense sirens pulling double duty as a fire siren often can produce an alternating "hi-lo" signal (similar to a British police car) as the fire signal, or a slow wail (typically 3x) as to not confuse the public with the standard civil defense signals of alert (steady tone) and attack (fast wavering tone). Fire sirens are often blasted once a day at noon and are also called "noon sirens" or "noon whistles".

Some time before 1799, the first siren was invented by the Scottish natural philosopher (physicist) John Robison. Robison's sirens were used as musical instruments; specifically, they powered some of the pipes in an organ. Robison's siren consisted of a stopcock that opened and closed a pneumatic tube. The stopcock was apparently driven by the rotation of a wheel.

In 1819 an improved siren was invented and named by Baron Charles Cagniard de la Tour. De la Tour's siren consisted of two perforated disks that were mounted coaxially at the outlet of a pneumatic tube. One disk was stationary, while the other disk rotated. The rotating disk periodically interrupted the flow of air through the fixed disk, producing a tone. De la Tour's siren could produce sound under water, suggesting a link with the sirens of Greek mythology; hence the name of the instrument.

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Wikipedia