It’s amazing how far American fire alarm technology has come in the last 200 years. The first alarm systems were very primitive. They included people walking the street twirling fireman’s rattles and/or someone ringing a church bell in order to alert volunteer firemen that there was a fire. In their own way, early Americans had developed their own form of wireless fire alarms. How ironic!

Finally, in 1852, the first public fire alarms were installed in Boston. Now all someone had to do to report a fire was to go to the nearest fire box and turn its crank. By doing so they set off a chain reaction. After being cranked, the fire box was equipped with technology that would send the message, via a telegraph-like system, to the dispatcher. The dispatcher would figure out what box the call came from and translate the box number into an address. Then the dispatcher would transmit the address to the nearest fire company who would, at long last, head for the scene of the fire.

Even though fire alarm systems have come a long way since 1852, there are still some cities, mainly in the American northeast, which still use public fire alarms. In fact, in many cities businesses have been mandated to connect to the public systems. This is done using a "master box" arrangement.

Major Changes with Wireless Fire Alarms

While public fire reporting systems are quite reliable and continue to function under adverse weather conditions, they can’t be used to transmit any information except the presence of a fire. Plus, most cities don’t already have a system like this, and in today’s financial market it wouldn’t be cost-effective to install one.

Modern wireless technology has brought new, multi-functional fire reporting methods, such as fire alarm radio transmitters, to the forefront. Some of these new technologies include cellular transmitters, digital alarm communicator systems, private microwave radio systems, radio frequency transmission, and coded radio boxes. These systems don’t require an elaborate system of wires like the old public ones did. They can be used by anyone wherever they are.

One of the new technologies uses local radio transmission using coded radio boxes. This type of a system can be powered by a utility distribution system, power supplied by the user, or batteries. Big cities which have no buildings with copper infrastructure support the coded-box system well. The fire alarm radio transmitter system may also prove beneficial in cities where conductor maintenance has become cost-prohibitive. There are both one-way and two-way radio alarms on the market. A one-way system only sends alarms, while a two-way is able to both send and receive.

Fire alarm technology has come a long way from the "wireless" fireman’s rattle to the fire alarm radio transmitters we now have available.