![]() ![]() The attachment fittings or fasteners on both ends of the bar had rusted completely through. Sixty-five-plus years of exposure to the corrosive seaside environment-not least the very saltwater fog that underlay the horns’ purpose-and fifty years of disuse and periods of neglect took their toll. Several weeks ago a foot-long metal bar, part of the structure supporting the weight of the horns, fell to the ground. The old air compressors have been removed. Large tanks that held the compressed air are still in the building, as well. Mounted lower on a wall are the on-off switch and the electro-mechanical device that timed the durations of the blasts and the silent intervals between them. The exterior horns amplified and directed the sound. The photo above was taken from the platform. Mostly obscured (by a stairway and platform) high on the interior side of that wall are the mechanical and electrical components that fed and controlled compressed air and produced the tones. Visible high on the Fog Signal Building’s exterior wall facing the sea are the horns of the two diaphones. Navigation aids based on radio signals had made audible signals obsolete. This, the last fog signal, was silenced in 1976. The fourth primary fog signal was a smaller, more efficient, single-tone, diaphragm device that was mounted on the lighthouse tower below the lower southwest window in the mid-1960s. Circa 1950, the siren was removed, a second diaphone was procured, and the two diaphones-primary and back-up-were placed side-by-side in their current location. In 1935, a diaphone replaced the siren as the primary signal, while the siren appears to have been retained as a back-up signal. Beginning with the siren and for the next 65 years, a mariner knew he was hearing Pigeon Point’s signal if 2-second blasts were separated alternately with 6 and 20 seconds of silence. Its compressor was powered by a gasoline engine that greatly reduced the start-up time compared to heating cold water in the boiler into steam for the whistle. The whistle was replaced in 1911 with a compressed-air siren. Once, in 1897, the whistle ran night and day for six weeks while its steam boiler consumed a cord of wood every ten hours. It was a steam whistle that mariners could possibly confuse it with a ship’s whistle and that locals complained sounded like a sick cow. The first began service in September 1871, the year before the beacon began operating. An exhibit in the Fog Signal Building describes the various fog signals that were in service at Pigeon Point. ![]()
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