So my church has a fake bell tower where instead of bells there are four speaker horns. Last winter the "bells" stopped playing. Inside there's a rack with a mono amp and a digital source that has all of the bell sounds stored on it and automatically plays them on a schedule.

There's a small monitor (speaker) with the rack inside so you can hear what's being played while indoors. I have verified that the source is putting out good audio. I also hooked up a thrift store bookshelf speaker up to the primary output of the amp, turned the volume way down (attenuation up, actually), and I was able to hear things just fine.

That leaves the wiring or the horns themselves as the only possible issues, right?

The horns are way too high for me to get close to, so I pulled out my ancient DJI Phantom and got some pics and a video. You can see that here. Note there is some lightning arresting gear up on the tower which was added after the first system installed was smote by God himself. They had to replace everything after that incident, which was years before I lived here.

I'm not sure exactly what the horns are or how they're wired, but there is a single pair of leads feeding all four. I put a meter on that pair to measure resistance and it is not an open circuit. I measured that a few months ago so I don't remember exactly, but I want to say it was something like 4 ohms. I don't have a great way to measure impedance.

Right now I'm out of ideas of things to try next. I don't want to recommend that we rent a crane to inspect/fix until all other options are exhausted. Any help is appreciated, and thanks for your time.

Have to say, great view from up there, JMO but if you have output at the amp it's like you said wires or speakers.

Since there are multiple speakers and none work I'd venture the wire is the culprit, perhaps a bird was up there pecking at the wires and something is loose.

About the only way to tell is to get up there and check them, think I'd find a better way to splice that main wire under the brick opening below the speakers and out of harms way from weather and critters n such...

These speakers look like a 70V line system. I'd be looking for a Bogen amplifier or on your equipment, see if any of the output connections say 70 Volt. perhaps your equipment is feeding another amplifier in another part of the building.

Just a thought.

Looks like the speaker wires are in that plastic box. The big woven looking wire connected externally looks like lightning grounds.

The speakers could be wired in series, parallel, or both. I think I'd give the manufacturer of your digital carillon system a call and ask them how to diagnose.

I'd also paint the cross while you are up there.

It could be that 4 ohms is just the resistance of the wire because the protection equipment sacrificed themselves and are now shorted.

quote:

Originally posted by Some Shot:
It could be that 4 ohms is just the resistance of the wire because the protection equipment sacrificed themselves and are now shorted.

Excellent point, hadn't thought of that.

.

Based on California Gull, I expect you're in Utah. I mention this because I'm in San Diego where the neighborhood Church setup an outdoor PA system and started playing bells as calls to Services and hourly chimes.

Several people did not appreciate the loudness of the PA system. I'm about 2 almost 3 blocks away and the bells woke me up at 7am every Sunday morning.

The Church board responding to complaints with a form letter stating it was their Constitutional rights to play service bells. After six months, the bells just stopped.

The neighborhood big mouth claims someone snipped the wires midway up the Church Steeple and left a note saying...All people are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness which includes sleeping in on a Sunday morning. God given Rights trumps your Constitutional Rights. The people that live here don't want to listen to your bells all day long...

The Church got the message and redirected the speakers straight down instead of pointed to the homes and they turned down the volume.

I share the story because, it's funny (to me at least) and to suggest you inspect the speaker wires all the way from the Amp to the speakers. Wires may have been chewed on by a mouse or cut by a human.

.