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The Beidweiler longwave transmitter is a high-power broadcasting
The Beidweiler longwave transmitter is a high-power broadcasting transmission
Transmission or transmit may refer to:
Science and technology
* Power transmission
** Electric power transmission
** Transmission (mechanical device), technology that allows controlled application of power
*** Automatic transmission
*** Manual tra ...
site owned by RTL Group
RTL Group S.A. ("Radio Télévision Luxembourg") is a Luxembourg-based international media conglomerate, with another corporate office in Cologne, Germany. The company operates 56 television channels and 36 radio stations in Germany, France an ...
and operated by RTL company Broadcasting Center Europe. It was used to transmit the French-speaking
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in ...
programme of RTL on longwave
In radio, longwave (also spelled long wave or long-wave and commonly abbreviated LW) is the part of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave (MW) broadcasting band. The term is historic, dati ...
frequency until 1 January 2023. Based in Beidweiler, Luxembourg
Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...
, the transmission site is situated at 49°43'58" N and 6°19'08" E and went into service in 1972 as replacement of the old Junglinster Longwave Transmitter. Junglinster remained in use as a backup site and for additional broadcast services.
Construction
The facility uses a directional antenna consisting of three tall guyed masts, each equipped with a cage antenna. The output of this array is mostly directed towardParis
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. When the site was inaugurated in 1972 it operated with a transmission power of 1400 kilowatts, which was pushed up to 2000 kW in 1974, making it one of the most powerful broadcasting stations in the world at the time.
History
In 1994, the facility's transmitters were replaced with Thomson-Csf TRE 2175 units, which in turn were replaced by a new Transradio TRAM/P 1500 LS solid-state transmitter in 2011 that could support DRM digital radio broadcasting. The maximum power of the site is 1500 kW (reduced to 1000 kW at night); since 2020, the output power has been set to 750 kW daytime or 375 kW at night. In 2019, RTL Group and Luxembourgish energy company began work on an extensive solar generation facility at Beidweiler. The first phase of the project, consisting of 16,100photovoltaic
Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially ...
solar panels, was connected to the national energy grid in 2020. A second group of panels went online in 2021. Together with a similar solar generation facility at Junglinster, the transmission sites make up the largest solar facility in Luxembourg, generating almost 10.5 gigawatt-hours of energy per year.
In October 2022, RTL parent company Groupe M6 announced plans to cease broadcasting from the site, citing the need to reduce electricity consumption. Transmissions from Beidweiler stopped on 2 January 2023, with listeners advised to switch to FM, DAB+, or streams delivered via digital TV and mobile apps.
See also
* List of tallest structures in Luxembourg *List of famous transmission sites
In the following there are lists of sites of notable radio transmitters. During the early history of radio many countries had only a few high power radio stations, operated either by the government or large corporations, which broadcast to the po ...
References
External links
* http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b7751 * * https://theantennasite.com/countries/luxembourg/beidweiler-ruedelastation.html {{coord, 49.73033, N, 6.32058, E, source:placeopedia, display=title Towers in Luxembourg Radio masts and towers in Europe Junglinster Transmitter sites in Luxembourg Towers completed in 1972 1972 establishments in Luxembourg