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Experience
RICH IN HISTORY
The Biersach and Niedermeyer Company was founded in Chicago in 1873 as a metal fabrication company specializing in ornamental architecture for ornate buildings; they prospered through and beyond the industrial revolution. In 1942 the company was awarded a contract to manufacture sirens for the Dept. of the Army. Over 2000 sirens were produced and installed in the Pacific Theater for our Naval Installations and Air Bases. They alerted thousands of people to attacks, emergencies, and disasters.
Alerting Communicators of America (ACA), a manufacturing division, came to be with this contract during World War II. After the war, ACA designed and manufactured a wide array of warning siren systems for Severe Weather Warning, Emergency Management, Industrial and Nuclear Plant Safety, Prisons, and Military Facilities.
Through strategic growth and a desire to stand on their own ACA was split off from the metal fabrication company in 1990 and incorporated as American Signal Corporation. American Signal Corporation continues to support many of the ACA sirens in 2010; some have been in the field for 50-60 years. The proven durability of these ACA designs is the backbone of American Signal Corporation’s electro-mechanical and high powered voice/sirens.
The system’s durability dates from the 1940’s, but American Signal Corporation’s technology is pure 21st century. With a single-minded focus on mass notification and early warning systems, Our Company has explored and integrated new technology to produce dependable but also advanced and flexible systems. Since 2005, several thousand devices have been deployed for a Tsunami Warning System throughout Thailand. ASC mass notification systems are in place at 70% of U.S. nuclear power plants.
American Signal Corporation is an innovative organization dedicated to supplying the most appropriate mass notification solutions for communities, facilities, and countries. The American Signal Corporation engineering, sales, and marketing teams work with clients and regulatory agencies to develop and market systems that are appropriate, compliant, versatile, and dependable. Tens of thousands of installed systems stand ready to alert tens of millions of people around the world.
The ASC team has the experience and products to meet your Mass-Notification needs.
American Signal Corporation has decades-long relationships with the corporations that create energy with nuclear power. We have designed, installed, and manage the preventative for ANS sat dozens of nuclear facilities in the United States.
Formerly known as ACA, American Signal still services ACA sirens for some facilities but has upgraded a number of facilities to American Signal sirens and systems.
Our consultants provide valuable contributions to the creation of REP-10 documents. Based on our long experience with FEMA and other nuclear facilities, we will work with you to develop a clear, concise, properly formatted, and well-documented REP-10. We begin the process with an in-depth site visit and consultations with the county and plant’s emergency operations managers and their teams.
From there, we design a robust, failure-resistant system capable of standing up to the most stringent design review and FMEA. We have technologies exceeding those required for the safety of the population around a nuclear facility. The creative, flexible, and technically-sound integration of our available technologies creates an appropriate, effective, and bullet-proof solution for each facility with whom we are entrusted.
Within the nuclear power industry, security is paramount. For this reason, we will not post our client list or provide descriptions of their systems. We will however, provide extensive references and project information to members of the nuclear emergency management community.
In a recent project, ASC installed more than 1000 high-powered speaker arrays on towers throughout the coastal areas of an Asian country. Deploying the system created communication resources in the most remote regions; for the first time in history, the country has an end to end communications network. The warning system is managed by one national and a group of regional control centers; it is controlled across a satellite communications system. It is used, of course, for emergency warnings, but in this proud, reverent country, the system is also used for religious messages, patriotic notices, and to play the national anthem at the same time throughout the nation. Once the initial system was deployed in 2005, the government embarked on an ambitious program to deploy warning solutions to 100% of their nation. They have deployed many capabilities since 2005 and have years of phases planned to further advance the system.
A nearby nation, also devastated in 2004’s tsunami, toured the tsunami warning system; the government promptly announced that they wanted the same system to protect their country. For Phase I in 2007, American Signal designed the system and installed 50 towers with high-powered speaker arrays to protect the nation’s coastal areas. This is an ongoing project as the country works to provide alerts throughout the nation for a wide variety of emergencies.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor sparked a new security concern and a need was created to warn of impending air attacks. This solution was a development of a Civil Defense siren.
Established as the Biersach and Niedermeyer Company in 1873, we began manufacturing sirens and control systems in 1942, after being awarded the contract to manufacture sirens for the United States Dept. of the Army. Over 2000 sirens were produced to be installed in the Pacific Theater for our Troops and Air Bases.
Since that time, American Signal Corporation has manufactured a wide array of warning siren equipment and radio control accessories for Civil Defense, Emergency Management, Industrial and Nuclear Plant Safety, and Military Disaster Preparedness. Throughout the past decades sirens have evolved through technology and today a new generation of a siren has been created. This development offers a Giant Voice system that sends warning tones, music such as bugle calls and reveille through wireless, Ethernet or landline connection. In addition, this system is capable of broadcasting voice messages that are prerecorded and live public address.
Giant Voice Systems are being installed at many bases today such as Nellis Air Force Base, Ft Belvoir, Redstone Arsenal, Aberdeen Proving Grounds and many more…
American Signal Corporation’s alerting systems are ideally suited for campus applications. Corporate and school campuses often have acoustically challenging areas around tall buildings. Our wide range of outdoor notification devices and flexible control systems allow for effective notification system coverage, no matter the challenging locale. Our thorough understanding and technical capabilities to measure and enhance sound propagation and speech intelligibility drives us to propose efficient, effective mass notification systems for public areas.