Whelen Engineering

Whelen Engineering

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The text in this article is written in 1st person by 4J25, that will likely change later.

A brief history of their outdoor warning sirens.

Important: Text that is bolded refers to information that has been inferred. Essentially, this is information for which I have been unable to find concrete evidence, but related topics and other information strongly suggests that it should be correct, or if it's almost painfully obvious.

I've attempted to organize this information by each siren series, and chronologically within each series. With that said, there are a few things you ought to know now:

The Controllers

From 1977 to 1987, the controller on each Whelen siren consisted of a separate tone generator and decoder. Any siren using this form of controller contains the prefix "WS" in the model nomenclature. In 1987, the microprocessor based ESC-864 was introduced. Any siren with this controller or newer or any older siren that has received a front panel upgrade contains the prefix "WPS" in the model nomenclature. Contrary to popular belief, "WS" and "WPS" don't actually stand for anything. In 1993, the ESC-864 was upgraded from analog to digital. In 2001, the ESC-864 was replaced with the ESC-2020. Around 2011 or 2012, the ESC-2020 was replaced with the ESC-2030, which is in production at the time of this post.

Bruce Howze and Community Pro Loudspeakers

You will see the name Bruce Howze mentioned a bit. Mr. Howze, along with his company Community Pro Loudspeakers, designed a multitude of Whelen sirens and parts. Howze and CPL are an integral part of Whelen's history, and they still supply their 400-watt "superpower" drivers.

An Organizational Sidenote

I have opted to include the Vortex under the 4000 series section, similar to how the Vortex-O would be considered part of the 2000 series.

With that said, let's talk sirens!

WS-1000

Whelen Engineering first entered the outdoor warning siren market in 1977, with their WS-1000 siren. While capable of three distinct signals (wail, yelp, and two-tone) and voice functionality, the primary feature introduced by the 1000 was its battery backup—the first of its kind on the market. The siren head itself was of a rather simple design: four* to eight 125-watt drivers, each routed through Atlas CJ46 re-entrant fiberglass paging horns, all attached to a utility pole. Despite being Whelen’s revolutionary introduction to the outdoor warning siren market, the 1000 never seemed to be too popular, and it ended up having a relatively short production run, ending in 1979.