| | - Kidde AEC-2000 Loud Hailer.
I dug up some D batteries and tried it out for a few minutes. It works fine. Nice and loud. Considering this is probably from the '60's or '70's, it's not too shabby.
I saw an old Hawaii Five-0 episode a few days ago where Steve McGarrett used a horn just like this to tell the bad guys to "drop your guns and come out with your hands on your head".
This can be used as a handheld with the trigger switch on the grip or as a shoulder hung hailer with the PTT on the removable mic. It is olive drab (more or less) and the nameplate on the top of the battery box had been removed before I got it leaving 2 small holes and 2 loose rivets. The Kidde label in the horn was left. There are some scratches and some minor dings and dents, but it's in pretty good shape.
The horn is about 14 inches long overall from the mic to the front of the horn. The horn is 8 ½ inches diameter and about 6 inches deep. The rubber gasket between the horn and the battery box has cracks in it. The battery box is 5 ¾ inches long, 4 inches high and 6 inches wide. Horn and box are aluminum. Mic and grip are cast aluminum. This is really well made. Weighs 6 pounds without batteries, 9 pounds 5 ounces with the 10 alkaline D cells on board.
It runs on 10 D cells (no batteries included). I ran it on 12 Volts while first testing it and it worked fine. The battery contacts have a couple of old corrosion spots, but nothing bad.
The original mic element (which is a phone transmitter) didn't work too well, so I replaced it with a more modern plastic one which works just fine. I will include the old one, it shows in the first picture.
I found somewhere on the web that this is rated at 45 watts, it is pretty loud. It is loud enough to easily make an echo off of almost any solid object from 20' or more away. The mic has a long heavy duty coil cord, 24 inches, more than 5 feet long extended, with a Mil-Spec style locking plug and socket. There is a PTT switch and volume control right on the mic. volume control works even when using the trigger switch. There is a crack and a missing hunk of plastic from the mic cover, shown in the first photo below. The cloth covering the mic face is in good shape, looks like old speaker grille cloth.
There is a threaded hole in the base of the pistol grip that fits a tripod thread (¼ -20). There is also a larger hole with a rubber plug stuck in it on the front bottom of the grip, I don't know what it's for. You can see it in the first and last pictures. Maybe the mic cord came out there in a lesser (non-militarized?) model.
Cotton adjustable shoulder strap is one inch wide and 4 foot long if extended all the way, with snaps on each end. Some rust on the strap hardware, though the sliding buckle is black coated and not rusty. All the hardware mounted directly to the horn seems to be either stainless, including the battery compartment catches and the D-rings for the strap, or, as in the case of the mic plug, some other non-corroding alloy.
Pictures below.
- $100.00, includes UPS Ground shipping in the lower 48 States.
Please let me know if it is a commercial or residential address.
You can put this information in the message box at PayPal.
I can ship other ways, there will be an additional charge, contact me for a quote first.
Thanks, AJ.
Click on image for larger image.
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