Noon whistle!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It’s the first Tuesday of the month and it was 10:04 AM, so of course, the local noon whistle sounded. For about 2 or 3 minutes. So, there’s one pretty close and some in the distance. One was pitched higher than the others. And this thought occurred to me…

Why not have them tuned to sound a chord? Probably a minor chord. If they were tuned to a major chord, someone would probably want to get creative and start playing bugle calls on them.

I mentioned this to my roommate and he suggested in the event of a nuclear war, they could play “Don’t Fear The Reaper”, but I said, “Naw, they wouldn’t need sirens for that, just really loud cowbells.” Then we went off on a nonsensical tangent about electric cowbells.

2

That makes me think of a diesel typewriter! :slight_smile:

3

Well, if you’re going to use an electric cowbell, you don’t need to hear it… just follow the cord.

4

Could be a battery-powered cowbell… :slight_smile:

5

if they’re mechanical sirens, then the tone they send out is a function of the number of ports in the rotor and the speed of the motor spinning them. the only way to get a perfect chord is to have a dual-tone siren.

in fact, back during the Cold War, Civil Defense sirens were required to be dual-tone. the Federal Signal Thunderbolt was such a siren, and sounded a minor-third chord:

others had a 4th interval:
6

So what happens if the nuclear plant melts down at 10:04 on the first Tues of the month? Nobody reacts because they’re expecting it then?

7

You mean there are still places with a noon whistle? The town I grew up in had one, it was the same as the volunteer fire siren. There was also a four oclock and a five oclock whistle, blown by local industrial plants at quitting time, and could be heard all over town, sending kids home for supper.

But I think in that town, the noon siren was discontinued decades ago – maybe 40 or 50 years.

Martin Gardner described the town where the man who blew the noon whistle checked his watch every morning walking to work when he passed the jewelry store, and the jeweler set the clock in his window when he heard the noon whistle.

8

We still have a noon whistle here, and yes it also doubles as our volunteer fire siren. I thought all small towns did - not sure about bigger cities.

9

I may not understand the term “noon whistle” but it seems to me it was almost 2 hours early.

10

It’s noon o’clock somewhere.

11

That’s what I love about. I can understand it being an hour off due to some “spring ahead, fall back” confusion, but 2 hours is amusing. After we change the clocks this season, I’ll have to pay attention to what time it sounds.

12

No, it’s noon:51 somewhere.

When I was in a little town in Indonesia, there was a power failure,and when their clocks reset to 12:00, all the automated recorded muezzen calls from the mosques were at the wrong times for a few days