Hankoku
| Hankoku Electric Company, Limited | |
| |
| Names | Hankoku Electric Co., LTD.
Hankoku Electric Manufacturing Co., LTD. |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | 4-11 Sanshocho, Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan |
| Founded | 1928 |
| Products | Sirens |
Hankoku Electric Company, Limited was founded in 1928 as an electric equipment manufacturer. They started making sirens as early as 1936 and have succeeded regionally in Japan since then. Their siren offerings range from small industrial alarms to full sized outdoor warning sirens. They continue to supply the Japanese market today and still sell sirens and other signaling devices.
History
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Products
Motor sirens (1 ph)
Model AQ
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Model AQN
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Model AQNR-6W
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Model AQNR-3W
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Model RSA
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Model RSA-2WU
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Model RSA-P
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Model AWN
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Model HW
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Model HHS-200
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Model HHS-400
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Model HHS-750
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Model ASN
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Motor sirens (3 hp)
Model BW
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Model BWF
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Model SBGM-6WU
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Model SBGM-3WU
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Model SBGM-2WU
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Model SBGM-P
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Model BQ-2WUS
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Model BQ-PS
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Model VQR-6W
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Model N-BQR
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Model BQ
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¼ hp siren
One of Hankoku's earliest electric sirens was a 6-port, ¼ hp directional industrial alarm, which begun production in 1936. The siren makes use of a 100/200 V 1/4 hp AC motor and a 6-port rotor and stator. 2 finger guards are placed around the stator to prevent injury from misuse of the siren. 2 rectangular mounting legs on each side of the siren's motor allow it to be bolted to a flat surface via 2 pegs on each side of the leg bases. Little to nothing else is known about this siren, and no units are known to exist today.
Turbo Siren
Most likely inspired by the contemporary Ibuki Kogyo compressor sirens, Hankoku introduced their own high-performance siren. A notable thing about this siren is the single or 2-stage turbo-supercharger powered by the bottom end of the siren's motor. The turbo forces air into the top of the chopper and amplifies the siren's sound. A damper was installed in the air duct, making it possible to create a more diverse variety of signals. The siren first entered production in 1939 as an air raid siren during the World War II, ending production shortly after 1945. Today only 2 examples of these sirens are known to exist, 1 from 1944-1945 surviving above the old town hall of Beppu, Japan and the other on display outdoors at a museum in China. Judging by the low number of photographs found of these sirens, it should be considered that this siren was probably produced in relatively low numbers. An image on the Hankoku website hints that these sirens may have had 8 or 9 port choppers. Like many Japanese sirens, the Turbo Siren also had a damper. Later models had an unusual extra air duct that forced air to the suction side of the turbo-supercharger unit. There are no official documents explaining this, but it may have allowed an even distribution of air pressure in the system when the damper or shutter was closed, limiting the stress on the damper caused by high air pressure. The surviving unit at Beppu demonstrates that this siren was built mostly from cast aluminum and therefore it was probably a lot more expensive than the Ibuki sirens that were made out of thick sheet metal and cast iron. From some images it is possible to approximate that the siren is quite large at around 2.3 m (7.54 ft) tall and the projectors approximately 1.5 m (4.92 ft) long each. Additionally, the information sign in front of the Beppu siren reads that the siren was installed in 1945 and has a 15 hp motor.