Spectra Siren Programming

[sourapple613]

I have my siren installed. But don't quite understand how the manual mode is utilized... I can push and hold it all day long but it doesn't make noise like a normal manual button on a whelen siren, etc.

Is there a manual out there that tells me how to program the siren and what does what and how to use it?

I have a DEK attached to an A7 head with a 110 watt VHF trunk mount spectra.

Thanks in advance.

[jmr061]

The manual button is used for hooking up a relay to the VIP ports on the control head and interfacing it with the "horn" on the vehicle. This produces either wail or airhorn when on manual or changes siren tones when using wail/yelp/hi lo.

Jason

[sourapple613]

The manual button is used for hooking up a relay to the VIP ports on the control head and interfacing it with the "horn" on the vehicle. This produces either wail or airhorn when on manual or changes siren tones when using wail/yelp/hi lo.

Jason

Can you give me any documentation on how to do this?
Instead of the horn... Im thinking about a foot switch.... thoughts on that?

[linkinpark9812]

The manual button is used for hooking up a relay to the VIP ports on the control head and interfacing it with the "horn" on the vehicle. This produces either wail or airhorn when on manual or changes siren tones when using wail/yelp/hi lo.

Jason

Can you give me any documentation on how to do this?
Instead of the horn... Im thinking about a foot switch.... thoughts on that?

Foot switch would also work.

Like KB9KST said, you need to use a VIP port. In the RSS, you need to read the codeplug, then pres F4(CHANGE VIEW)>F6(CONTROL HEAD)>F5(VIP INPUT). Then you need to set one of the pins (either on the control head or a DEK if installed, which it will say in the LOCATION column) to HORN RING. When the HORN RING pin is GROUNDED, it will do whatever the MANUAL function is set to in the RSS. It will also switch tones when in Wail/Hilo/Yelp like KB9KST said. The RSS needs to also have the SIREN button and the MAN button programmed, either to a DEK or the control head. MAN needs to be enabled, as well as SIREN, for the HORN RING pin to function. If one or both are off, the horn ring manual will not function.

For the pinouts on different control heads and DEKs, go here: http://www.onfreq.com/syntorx/spectra/boards.html (towards bottom of page)

Then you need to go under the Siren options in the RSS and change "Manual Siren Tone" to AIRHORN, as well as enabling "Hilo/Airhorn Siren Tones".

Do you just want the airhorn and NO siren? Police will not take kind in you using a siren if you have no need for it. Not jumping to conclusions, but if you have a reason for using the siren, just post up what you need the siren to do and i'll (or someone else) can give you more info. If you only want the airhorn, you have to make sure the siren cannot be accidentally activated, which I can tell you how if that is how you are using it.

Have fun! Hope this info helps!

[ke7joi]

The manual button is used for hooking up a relay to the VIP ports on the control head and interfacing it with the "horn" on the vehicle. This produces either wail or airhorn when on manual or changes siren tones when using wail/yelp/hi lo.

Jason

Can you give me any documentation on how to do this?
Instead of the horn... Im thinking about a foot switch.... thoughts on that?

Foot switch would also work.

Like KB9KST said, you need to use a VIP port. In the RSS, you need to read the codeplug, then pres F4(CHANGE VIEW)>F6(CONTROL HEAD)>F5(VIP INPUT). Then you need to set one of the pins (either on the control head or a DEK if installed, which it will say in the LOCATION column) to HORN RING. When the HORN RING pin is GROUNDED, it will do whatever the MANUAL function is set to in the RSS. It will also switch tones when in Wail/Hilo/Yelp like KB9KST said. The RSS needs to also have the SIREN button and the MAN button programmed, either to a DEK or the control head. MAN needs to be enabled, as well as SIREN, for the HORN RING pin to function. If one or both are off, the horn ring manual will not function.

For the pinouts on different control heads and DEKs, go here: http://www.onfreq.com/syntorx/spectra/boards.html (towards bottom of page)

Then you need to go under the Siren options in the RSS and change "Manual Siren Tone" to AIRHORN, as well as enabling "Hilo/Airhorn Siren Tones".

Do you just want the airhorn and NO siren? Police will not take kind in you using a siren if you have no need for it. Not jumping to conclusions, but if you have a reason for using the siren, just post up what you need the siren to do and i'll (or someone else) can give you more info. If you only want the airhorn, you have to make sure the siren cannot be accidentally activated, which I can tell you how if that is how you are using it.

Have fun! Hope this info helps!

I would like to know to do this to see red

[linkinpark9812]

Do you just want the airhorn and NO siren? Police will not take kind in you using a siren if you have no need for it. Not jumping to conclusions, but if you have a reason for using the siren, just post up what you need the siren to do and i'll (or someone else) can give you more info. If you only want the airhorn, you have to make sure the siren cannot be accidentally activated, which I can tell you how if that is how you are using it.

Have fun! Hope this info helps!

I would like to know to do this to see red

Well, you need to do what I said above. Make sure that Airhorn is set as the manual tone.

The minimum buttons that need to be programmed are SIREN and MAN. You do NOT want WAIL, YELP, or HI-LO programmed. If you are not going to use the Horn ring thing, then you would also want to program a button as AIR HORN, which when you push it will activate the horn.

However, if you do not plan on using the horn ring, the SIREN and MAN button do not need to be programmed at all. The air horn button seems to be independent of this, and only the horn ring is affected by the SIREN button status. However, these buttons are fail safes IMO. This is how the siren works.

If you had ALL SIREN buttons programmed, you would notice that when you want to select WAIL, YELP, MAN, and HI-LO, you will see that only one can be enabled at a time. When you turn the SIREN button on, it will activate what ever tone is selected. By default, if the radio loses power, it will ALWAYS put WAIL as enabled. If something happens and SIREN gets enabled, the WAIL sound will activated. If you have MAN selected, and turn on the SIREN button, nothing may seem to happen. However, it actually allows the HORN RING to be used, and will also activate a HORN TRANSFER VIP output pin if programmed.

So after you program it up, you will notice that the SIREN button and the MAN button are not lit up. Even though the WAIL button isn't programmed, the radio still has it activated. When you need to do is just press the MAN button and it will light up. Now, even with the SIREN button enabled, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the siren to activate (unless the manual siren tone for the horn ring is set to something other than AIRHORN).

The thing is is that when the radio loses power COMPLETELY, it will reset and you will need to make sure that the MAN button is lit up, so that you don't unintentionally activated the WAIL tone when you enable the SIREN button. By complete power loss, I don't mean it going off by the sense wires, and I also don't mean by the radio going off by manually turning it off with the switch. I am talking about the MAIN power cord with the RED AND BLACK leads being disconnected or a dead car battery or after a PROGRAMMING session. So basically once you push the MAN button on, it isn't possible to push the other siren buttons because they are not programmed and unless you lose power like I said above, it will stay like that and only the air horn will function.

Whew! hope this helps! Any more questions just post them up!

[sourapple613]

I am a firefighter.... Legally authorized by the state to use and posses red lights, sirens, etc.

Anyway with that out of the way....

Basically a way to set off siren (or air horn i guess) like normal sirens. Push and hold the manual button and release when I want no more travelling music.
I'm in a more rural area and don't need the siren blaring for minutes at a time. (usually 10 seconds at most.) and other than leaving it on wail or what not and then turning the siren off I haven't found a good way. I wish there was a standby mode. Currently I use manual as my standby mode.

I programmed the emergency button on the head to enable the siren to work (air horn always does). And then I remotely mounted my DEK closer to me for easier reach when I drive (radio head is a bit of a reach). (for those curious I extended the DEK cable with CAT5)
Anyway I enable the siren with it being on MAN mode or EXT RAD. And then had been hitting wail and turning it back to ext radio or MAN... I want something where I can push and hold it for as long as I need. Foot switch would be cool since my car's a stick and one less thing I need to do with my hands while driving then. I COULD tap into the horn... but haven't decided if I want to have it built into my horn..

Is it possible to have air horn with the horn ring... and wail with a foot switch? That i think'd be perfect.

[linkinpark9812]

With that, I want to say no as to having BOTH. Ya, the MAN mode on the DEK is confusing. You think it would be you hold it and get a "start up wail" and when you let go, either the wail stops, or falls back down. The MAN mode seems like, like you said, a standby mode for the siren while the SIREN button is enabled, as well as allowing the HORN RING INPUT to be operated.

The problem is that you really can't have both. There is only ONE horn ring input. When it is grounded, it sets off whatever is set for the manual mode in the RSS, which the possible choices are AIR HORN, WAIL, and YELP. As mine is set up as air horn, when grounded, it sounds it and when not grounded there is no sound.

I personally haven't tried it with WAIL or YELP, as I don't (and have no need) to use them so they are not programmed. I would assume that if set to yelp, you would get a YELP tone when the horn ring is grounded and when ungrounded it is shut off.

And I know what you are saying about the WAIL and MAN buttons. If i remember, you put wail on, and let it sound, and when you push the MAN button, the wail tone falls. I actually don't know, but if you have horn ring set to WAIL, I am wondering which one of the following things it would do:

1: while the horn ring is grounded, the WAIL goes up and down just like the normal WAIL button and when you let go of the horn ring, the WAIL STOPS and does not FALL.

2: while grounded, the wail goes up and down, and when you let go, the tone actually falls.

And for both of those, I wonder if while the horn ring is press, it just continues to wail up and down, or does it just wail up and max out at a certain point, and when you release it, it either falls or stops completely.

btw, if you don't know, when you have WAIL selected, you can use the SIREN button to give short bursts of the WAIL. When wail is selected, and u press the siren button, the wail will start to wind up from its lowest point, and when you push siren off, it will stop and not fall. Activate siren again and it will start to wind up again from its lowest point again like it did previously.

Let us know how it goes or post if you need more info!

[sourapple613]

I think I shoulda just bought a real siren.... But for 20 bucks and less crap to fill my car I'll deal with it how it is.... Will rearrange the buttons and will be happy for the most part. I think I will just get rid of the manual button period. It's pretty much a waste of space!

I'll look at how hard it is to add the horn ring to my VIP and will test out MAN and see what it does if I have time within the next week or so. I'm kinda curious now... And I might decide to still go with a foot switch.. Gotta play around with it some more now before I can decide what I want.

You are correct that if I have it on wail and then push MAN the siren does "fall"

Thanks for your help!