Location: Pickaway Township Fire Department
System: Pickaway County
Testing schedule: Wednesdays at noon
Testing time: 11:59:22 AM (1 minute early)
Cycle when tested: 3 minute alert
Cameras used: Canon PowerShot SX540HS (tight shot), Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (wide shot & audio)
Recording distance from siren: 205 feet
Loudness: 108.3 dBA, 112.1 dBA from close to/directly underneath
Temperature: 19°F
Other enthusiasts present: none
Other notes: On the third Wednesday of January, I decided to record this 2905 in Pickaway County. It was another very windy and bitterly cold day so Connor stayed home again, and Franklin County and Dublin actually cancelled their tests due to the cold. This was definitely one of the coldest siren tests I've attended to date, with windchills around 3°F if I recall correctly. As I was driving, I called both Pickaway and Madison County and they both said they were still gonna test, and I ended up going for Pickaway because I've been wanting to record this for some time now. This siren replaced a 2805 a few years ago, and I guess they decided to keep the old digital ESC-864 from it for some reason. Not sure why, but I think it makes this the first ever 465hz 2900 series documented, so there's that. I was pretty confident about this being 465hz because I could hear it from the 1st gen 4004 in Circleville we did last year; it didn't really sound like it was rotating and none of Circleville's Vortexes have digital ESC-864's. This one was a little louder than the 2750 in Dublin I recorded the week prior, but it still wasn't too loud. My meter maxed at 108.3 dBA while Connor's old one that I was also using got up to 112.1 dBA. Due to the heavy winds, I turned on image stabilization on my PowerShot, and it looks like it did a decent job of dampening the shakiness, although there's still some shake and drifting that can be seen. The wide shot was even worse though, so I applied some stabilization to that footage in editing. Also, I clapped my hands only about 2 seconds before the siren started up, so I cut more of the beginning of the video than I usually do. I clap my hands to make it easier for me to synchronize the footage from each camera. All in all, after some editing and adjusting to the shots, I think this video came out decent. Enjoy!
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