This from Steve Redick:
These are Don Neal photos from June of 1979, exactly 1 year before I went into the fire alarm office. These are some great shots of the equipment I worked with in my early years.
The first is the Gamewell striking machine. It was usually broken but we would dial up the box number and it would transmit four rounds, two on the joker circuit and two on the alarm circuit. We could not use it for extra alarms or special boxes. It was a real timesaver and produced a good consistent readout on the registers in the firehouses.
Don Neal photo
The senior’s desk. I spent many an hour here later in my career. The man in charge sat here and would organize all the resources using the map. Each cap was removable and was connected to a light with the company number on the big overhead map. Black were engines, red were trucks. The caps would be removed and placed in the holes with each row representing an alarm level. You could take one cap and place it on another and raise the switch to show occupancy at that firehouse and the cap would be raised above the others to call attention to the fact a foreign company was in the house. A simple system that was better than any electronic stuff since. In the picture you see a row of caps and a boxcard indicating companies at a working fire.We only used this for long term incidents like extra alarms or companies tied up at the shops or academy.
Don Neal photo
The red phones were direct ring-down lines to the city hall lobby, county building, and McCormick place. Box cards were in the drawers on either side.
Don Neal photo
Even though Englewood kept their own status with their map, we tracked it citywide. I much a time on a high stepladder changing the burned out bulbs on the map, long before the days of LEDs.
Don Neal photo
#1 by crabbymilton on July 27, 2020 - 7:29 AM
Again, look how far things have come even though that vintage equipment and methods are very interesting and informative.
Pingback: Chicago Fire Department history (more) « chicagoareafire.com