Hall of Flame
Museum of Firefighting
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Fire Alarm Systems
 | On exhibit are four displays of fire alarm systems. These are: |
| A Gamewell semi - automatic alarm system dating from a bout 1920. It was used by the city of Glendale, California. |
| A Gamewell automatic systemdating from 1906 and used by the city of Bristol, Wisconsin. |
| A custom made telephone based fire alarm system designed and built by the fire department of Phoenix, Arizona, and used between 1955 and 1975. |
| An operating demonstration unit of a Protectowire remote alarm detection system, donated to the museum by the Protecto Alarm Company. |
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A 1925 Gamewell semi-automatic system from Glendale, California, dating from about 1925. The operating system includes a non-interfering street box (below), a control panel, a circuit testing and protection board, a gong, and a series of repeaters using punch tape (at left). Together with this system is a gong and repeater of the variety found in fire houses to receive signals from a central station (below left). |
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| Each fire station had a gong and tape repeater in an area manned by a fireman on "house watch". Alarms sent from the central station sounded the gong and punched out the box number. Box 13, for example, would be punched out with one hole, a space, then three more. Both gong and tape repeater in this exhibit were made by Gamewell. | Alarms began at the street box like the one above. This box, made by Gamewell, was used in downtown Prescott, Arizona for over 60 years. |
| A 1906 Gamewell automatic system from a small town in Wisconsin. It includes a sector style box, an automatic style repeater that transmits box alarms to all fire houses on a system, a combination gong and indicator, a battery control panel, and a panel that allows the sending of signals from "ghost boxes" to fire stations throughout a city. This system is fully functional |  |
| A 1950s-1970s era telephone based alarm system
custom built by the Phoenix, Arizona Fire Department. This
innovative system includes a switchboard, a control panel for over 100
Gamewell boxes. two microfiche map readers, two dispatching consoles,
several radios, time stamps, a tape recording system, and a large
illuminated status map board that shows which stations are either on a run,
out of service, or available. The system does not operate, but has
been equipped with lights to allow its interpretation by visitors.
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