ACA P-50 Siren Test, Schaumburg, IL – 3/5/19

I wasn't really sure at first whether to drive to Niles to film a Federal Signal Thunderbolt 1000 or drive to Schaumburg and film their ACA P-50. Realizing that Bartlett's P-50 failed last month and that Schaumburg's doesn't have a lot of recordings, I decided to film this one instead. This siren is located at Novaspect Inc off of Tower Rd and is my very first P-50 I ever heard go off in person. It was a little hard to find a spot to set up since this P-50 is located in an industrial area, but we happened to find a spot in this little commercial strip. Initially, when Dominic programmed the Northwest Central Dispatch (NWCD) frequency into his radio scanner, it started acting up, so I wasn't sure if the siren would activate. Luckily, when it reached 10:01, some activation tones went through the scanner and the siren activated for roughly 1 minute 20 seconds of alert. I thought it would test longer since March was Severe Weather Awareness (SWA) week, but I guess not. However, this P-50 sounds more raspy since it hasn't been refurbished, but still sounds decent. Anyways, I'm glad I finally heard a P-50 go off in person and might potentially film one of Kenosha's P-50's on the 3rd Saturday. Cook County and most of Illinois test their sirens on the 1st Tuesday of the month at 10:00 AM.