gotmilk?

This goes back aways, a long way. When I was a grade schooler there was a young man that lived across the street that had a pretty, red Stingray coupe, 65 or 66, I remember the 3 gills. He didn’t drive that car to work, but left it parked in his driveway which had a slight incline. The car had an alarm, who knew there was such a thing in the mid sixties?
This was no minor annoyance electronic thing like you hear these days, but a sound like an air raid siren. When it went off you could hear it for blocks. If you’ve ever seen the round turbine type fan on a tornado warning tower, that’s what this was in miniature. Your could see it through the slits. The actuator was like a pin ball table tilt mechanism. For the uninitiated there is a pendulum that hangs down through a metallic ring not much bigger than a quarter. When you jostle the table, in this case the car, the pendulum swings and when it makes contact with the ring it completes the circuit and sets off the alarm. And this thing went off a lot. A stiff breeze would get this thing going.
The man had told my Dad if the alarm went off when he wasn’t home my Dad could call his father who only lived a few blocks away. He had keys to the car and would come over and shut off the alarm. Well after the umpteenth time my Dad had to call this guy’s father he came over pretty aggravated. He was using some pretty salty language about the car, the alarm, and his son. But the last time he came over he didn’t unlock the car and shut off the alarm. He chose a more permanent solution. He found a large stick in the yard, picked it up, walked over to the car, and just jammed it through the gills into the heart of that howling monster. We never heard that alarm again.

kellsdad

You remind me of an alarm story. I had moved into a brand new house in a large development that had lots of spec houses. The one next to me was finished and had power and an alarm system, but had not yet sold. One evening we had a strong wind storm and it must have moved a sensor enough to set of the alarm every 15 minutes or so. The alarm would blare for five minutes and then reset until the next wind gust. When bedtime arrived the alarm became especially annoying and I had heard enough. I took my flashlight, walked over to the house, found the main power panel on the outside wall and pulled the switch, cutting power to the entire house including the alarm. That left me wondering how effective the alarm was in the first place if a burglar could disable it as easily as I did.

rick66

Funny alarm story? I bought a Triumph motorcycle in 1971 while at Penn State. Prior to buying it, I went to look at it at an off-campus house. The bike was parked in the backyard. The owner had a small black string tied to the bike. The other end of the string went through a cracked-open window and was tied to a glass milk bottle on his night stand. I still laugh about it.

cbernhardt

OK, this is (sort of) an alarm and Corvette and car story. When my wife and I built our house some 50 years ago, a friend of mine who was in the alarm business installed a burglar arm and used an old police car siren for the noise maker. This was one of the torpedo shaped sirens about 2' long and about 8" in diameter. We used that alarm system for about 15 years and then replaced it with a more modern one, including an electronic siren. The old police siren was disconnected, but remained in our attic. About 15 years ago our Corvette club was looking to get the local sheriff's office to put on a display at our annual car show, and I volunteered to ask the sheriff for his assistance. So we are talking to the sheriff and he mentions that he once owned a 1959 Corvette. Well from that point we started talking about working on old cars, and he mentioned that he was restoring a 1947 (I think) Plymouth police car and had it almost done except that he could not find a period correct siren. I mentioned to him that I had an old siren that he could have if he could help us out with a display at our car show. I took the siren down from our attic, tested it out, and it still worked. I have not seen the restored police car yet.

DansYellow66

They must not have had a backup battery installed yet. But yeah, that would be annoying.